What Makes a Good Print?
129
Curves
134
The Shadow/Highlight Adjustment
145
How to Improve a Copy Print
151
How to Correct Uneven Exposure
156
Repairing Uneven Density: Dodge and Burn with Masked Adjustment
Layers
160
How to Enhance Almost-Blank Photos
167
How to Make Extreme Tone Changes without Distorting Colors
171
How to Fix Harsh Shadows on Faces
174

Save Time by Using Your Keyboard and Your Mouse
315
Capturing a Long Density Range in a Scan by Stacking Images
Descreening a Halftone
320
Getting the Most Detail out of Your Photograph
322
What Do You Do with a Tintype?
326
Stitching Scans Together
328
Improving the Original
335

The Special Needs of Digital Storage
445
In a Material World
446
Picking Up the Pieces
449
It’s Just a Matter of Time
449
All Storage Is Not Created Equal
450
Can You Hear Me Now?
453
Babel Fish
454
Final Words
455
Index

457

441

How-To’s
How to unmount a slide
92
How to scan a faded B&W print
95
How to scan a dark B&W print
99
How to scan a magazine or newspaper illustration
104
How to improve color with a good scan
106
How to inspect very dark parts of a scan
115
How to scan color negatives
118
How to scan very dense or faded color fi lm
119
How to determine what resolution to scan at
120
How to photograph tarnished prints
126
How to evaluate contrast with a histogram
130
How to change overall brightness and contrast with Curves
134
How to add contrast to midtones with Curves
136
How to use sample points with Curves
138
How to make a print look more brilliant and snappier with Curves
140
How to lighten or darken a print with Curves
140
How to bring out shadow tones with Curves
144
How to improve a copy print with Curves
144
How to improve snapshots with the Shadow/Highlight adjustment
151
How to improve a copy print with the Curves and Shadow/Highlight adjustments
153
How to correct uneven exposure with a Curves adjustment layer
156
How to do dodging and burning-in with masked Curves adjustment layers
161
How to scan a nearly blank photograph
167
How to recover a nearly blank photograph with Curves adjustment layers and “multiply”
blends
171
How to improve contrast without making colors too saturated
171
How to fi x harsh shadows on faces
174
How to retouch faces with a masked Curves adjustment layer
179
How to make a scan that produces good color
183
How to correct color with the midtone eyedropper
186
How to correct color with Picture Window Color Balance
186
How to correct color using Auto Color options
190
How to correct color with DIGITAL ROC
191
How to use layers to correct color and luminosity separately
193

xi

xii

How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How

How-Toâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

to
to
to
to
to
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to
to
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to
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Introduction
Why Restore Digitally?
I love reviving old photographs. I get almost as much pleasure from
saving someone’s cherished, but presumably lost, photograph as from
printing a brand new one of my own. I enjoy it so much that I have even
started a second business (http://photo-repair.com) just for doing digital
photo restoration.
Digital photo restoration is no more magical nor mysterious than
ordinary photographic printing . . . and no less. It still feels like a minor
miracle has occurred when a lovely photographic print, brand new or
restored to life, appears before my eyes. But, whether it happens in the
darkroom or at the computer, that miracle is based in established routine,
using tools and techniques that anyone can learn. Experience and skill
count for a lot, which is why I’m a good printer (and restorer), but it’s
not a secret art. Anyone can learn to restore photographs, just as anyone
can learn to print.
Digital restoration recovers and restores a photograph to its proper
glory while leaving the original object unaltered. You can restore almost
any type of original photograph—color and B&W; slides, negatives, and
prints; sheet fi lm and roll fi lm; and glass plates. You can even reconstruct
full-color images from color separation fi lms or plates. The restoration
process doesn’t involve any physical manipulation of the original photograph beyond making a high-quality scan. All the restorative work
takes place in the computer, not on the original photograph, which
means there is much less risk of damage to the original than with conventional physical photo restoration.
Digital restoration can work wonders; it usually produces much
greater improvements in image quality than conventional physical restoration. It is possible to re-create truly beautiful photographs digitally,
something that is often impossible with physical restoration. If restoring
the image, not the original photograph, is what’s important, then digital
restoration is the safest and the best way to resurrect a photograph.
Digital restoration has one other significant advantage over physical restoration: The results are theoretically permanent. A physical

1

2

Introduction

restoration of a photograph is subject to physical deterioration, just as
the original photograph was. With modern materials and techniques,
physical restorations will probably last longer than the original photographs did, but they won’t last indefi nitely; no physical artwork does. A
digital restoration has a potentially unlimited life. As long as proper
procedures and precautions are in place, it can be maintained indefinitely in its pristine and original form.
A physical restoration is a unique object, just as the original photograph was. That rarity may be part of its value, but it’s also a curse; the
restored artifact is just as prone to loss or destruction as it ever was. A
digital restoration can be shared with others as prints or images on a
screen, it can be duplicated exactly, and it can be stored in multiple
places. Once a photograph is digitally restored, its prospects for remaining part of our culture become vastly improved.
Digital restoration can have many goals (see Chapter 1, The Big
Picture), but the primary objective is to resurrect the photograph that
was originally there. The heart of what I do is not painting, drawing,
nor hand-tinting. Restoration is never a matter of mere retouching. The
only time I “create” parts of a photograph is when that area in the original is so badly damaged that there is nothing of the image to be
recovered.
When you are restoring a photo, you’re doing much more than
simply performing technical manipulation. Your goal may not even be
strict restoration; you may also be reinterpreting the original photograph
for different sensibilities and times, as you would when printing any
photograph. Always think like a photographer and never forget that you
are working on a photograph made by some other photographer. Don’t
lose sight of this; you want to be “in their head,” with the objective of
making a beautiful photograph, not just a serviceable rendering.
You won’t always know where you’re going when you’re doing a
restoration because originals are often so badly deteriorated that you
can’t even get a sense of what the photograph must have looked like
until you’re halfway done. That’s different from most crafts, where the
skilled artist can pretty well visualize what the fi nal artwork should look
like before ever picking up a tool. Nonetheless, when you start out, you’ll
have some idea in your head of where you want to take the work. Always
maintain an aesthetic sensibility about what you are doing and why, and
always remember to take that mental step back from the work, look at
it, and ask yourself, “Does this photograph look good?”
About This Book
I’m big on workflow. As my friends the Flying Karamazov Brothers
put it, “It doesn’t matter how you get there if you don’t know where
you’re going.” That’s why this book is much more than just a compendium of image processing tricks and techniques. I think it’s impor-

About This Book

tant to understand the entire job of creating a digital restoration from
start to fi nish. The core of restoration is the magic you perform digitally
in your favorite image processing program, but that core means little if
you don’t have a good grasp of the complete work path from getting
the deteriorated photograph into the computer to preserving the restored
image for the future. I want to make you aware of the context in
which you do restoration and how to set up your working environment
to do it.
This book mirrors the workflow as much as possible. The fi rst three
chapters set the stage on which you’ll work. That’s where I talk about
your objectives and requirements for a restoration job, what computer
hardware will best let you meet those goals, and what software is especially valuable for the restorer. I devote the fourth chapter to the subject
of converting the photograph to digital form because extracting the
maximum useful amount of data from the photograph is the key to
achieving a good restoration.
The heart of the restoration process (and of this book) is the digital
techniques and tools that actually work the magic of restoration. Chapters 5 through 9 will teach you the “moves.” You can read this book as
an extended single course in restoration (that’s kind of how I wrote it)
or you can mine it for particular tricks and techniques you need to solve
specific problems. Each chapter starts off with a list of “how to’s.” Each
how to points to a place in the chapter where you can learn how to
accomplish a particular task. All of the how to’s are listed in their own
table of contents (at the end of the regular table of contents) for easy
reference.
What comes next is learning how to put those moves together to
create a complete “performance.” Chapter 10, Examples, presents complete, step-by-step restorations that start with the originals and proceed
through to the fully restored images. Chapter 10 sets a very high bar;
I’m a perfectionist. Chapter 10 demonstrates the ultimate level of quality
I can achieve in a restoration, but you don’t have to go that far. Most of
the time you’ll fi nd that considerably less effort will give you great
results. Many of the how to’s and examples in the other chapters are
sufficient unto themselves. It doesn’t take a lot of work to do a very satisfying restoration.
Once the restoration is complete, you’ll need to get it back out of the
computer. So, I fi nish the book with chapters on printing and archiving.
It’s not enough just to make a good print of the photograph you’ve
restored—you should also take steps to ensure that the restoration fi le
endures.
I could no more write a book about digital restoration that didn’t
focus on Adobe Photoshop than I could write a book on business planning that omitted Microsoft Excel. Photoshop is the big player in digital
photography, and I’ll be the fi rst to acknowledge that it offers capabilities
nothing else does.

3

4

Introduction

I prepared most of the photographs and restorations for this book
using Adobe Photoshop CS2 under Windows. Most of the software tools
and techniques in this book work just as well under Mac OS (with a few
notable exceptions); for the most part, the only difference is certain
keystrokes.
Most of my methods work with earlier versions of Photoshop, although
the further back you go, the more limitations you’ll run into on what
tools you can use. To prove that one doesn’t need the latest and greatest,
Example 3 in Chapter 10 is a restoration I did in the 1990s with Photoshop 5.5 running on a 233-MHz Pentium machine.
Photoshop isn’t necessary. There are much less costly alternatives that
will let you do restoration work efficiently. My goal is to give you skills
and knowledge you can apply to do good restorations with any competent image processing program.
A good alternative for the serious worker who wants to spend under
$100 instead of more than $500 (and is using a Windows machine) is
Picture Window. I’ve worked extensively with this program. It’s entirely
capable and eminently affordable, and I talk more about it in Chapter 3,
Software for Restoration.
I use a lot of different third-party plug-ins and software utilities for
doing my restoration work. Chapter 3 provides summaries of all of them.
If one of these tools catches your interest when you read about me using
it, you can learn more about that program there. These tools and the
cases where I’ve applied them are also indexed in the back under
“software.”
About Other Books
Can you have too many Photoshop and digital printing books? Absolutely! I have a shelf full of excellent books, every one of which has
something of value to impart. The problem is that you could spend your
whole life reading books like these, and only two things would happen.
The fi rst is that you would never get any photographs made and printed,
and the second is that eventually your brain would fi ll up and your head
explode.
Some folks are undeniably gurus in this field. I’ll read anything that
Bruce Fraser or Andrew Rodney cares to write. If you want to understand the underlying principles of Photoshop specifically and digital
printing in general, these gentlemen have it nailed. But the single book
that I would say you absolutely, positively need to have on your shelf is
Martin Evening’s Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers (also from Focal
Press, just like the book you’re holding in your hands). I can’t think of
a better book for telling you how to actually use the program.
I read the current edition before sitting down to write my book. Every
time I read something pertinent to this book that I didn’t know, I’d forgotten about, or that I’d never had explained to me really clearly before,

Acknowledgments

I flagged that page with a sticky note. I flagged dozens upon dozens of
pages—and it’s not as if I’m a beginner; I’ve been doing electronic (what
we called it in the old days) printing for more than 30 years. Point
made?
The other book that ought to be on your must-buy list is Katrin
Eismann’s Photoshop Restoration & Retouching from New Riders. Katrin is
brilliant, even though she modestly claims otherwise. Her retouching
skills are awesome, as is her ability to create entirely missing portions
of photographs out of thin air. I’ll never be close to her when it comes
to wholesale re-creation of absent imagery and fi ne-art retouching.
If you read and assimilate the two books just discussed and mine,
you’ll know enough to take over the world.
If you are interested in doing accurate restorations of old prints and
want to understand better what they should look like and how they have
deteriorated, there is no fi ner book than Care and Identification of 19thCentury Photographic Prints by James M. Reilly. As of this writing, the
book seems to be out of print. Normally it would retail for about $30,
but the only copies I see available are running $80, an awfully large
chunk of change. Recommended, nonetheless, for the dedicated
restorer.
Keeping in Touch
Long-time readers know that I’m always happy to answer questions and
provide helpful advice whenever I can. If you have any questions about
the content of this book or need any assistance in matters photographic,
feel free to e-mail me at ctein@pobox.com. Should that e-mail address
change, you’ll still be able to reach me through my websites, “Ctein’s
Online Gallery” (http://ctein.com) and “Digital Photo Restoration by
Ctein” (http://photo-repair.com).
Photo-repair.com has a “hidden” page devoted to this book at the
URL http://photo-repair.com/photobook.htm that contains corrections
and updates before they appear in new paper editions of this book. That
page also has sample image fi les from this book for you to work with.
The folks who provided their personal photographs for this book have
generously given permission for me to put the fi les online for your
private enjoyment. You can download them and practice your restoration techniques on them. These fi les are for your personal use on your
computer only. Please do not redistribute them, publish them, post them
on your website, or link to them.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I would like to thank my editor, Diane Heppner at
Focal Press, who proposed this book, encouraged me to write it, and
demonstrated remarkable and gracious patience as it slouched its way

5

6

Introduction

toward reality. Paul Gottehrer, my production manager, did a speedy
and exemplary job of converting my scribblings into the fi ne pages
youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re reading. Paula Butler, Laurie Toby Edison, and Carol Everhart
Roper read every last word of the manuscript and corrected my
grammar, punctuation, logic, and clarity; their assistance was incalculably valuable.
Finally I would like to thank those wonderful folks who provided
the personal and family photographs that serve as examples throughout
this book: Dan Becks, Scott Brock, Grace Butler, Tee Corinne, Howard
Davidson, Jules Dickinson, Bayla Fine, John Fleshin, Sarah Goodman,
Bill Jemison, Ericka Johnson, Stuart Klipper, Laura Majerus, Clyde
McConnell, Ron Mowry, Myrna Parmentier, Jane Reber, and Carol
Everhart Roper.
About the Author
Ctein is the author of several hundred magazine articles on photographic
topics and of Post Exposure: Advanced Techniques for the Photographic Printer
(Focal Press, 2000). He has been doing darkroom printing for 40 years
and is one of the few remaining practitioners of the art of dye transfer
printing. He has been making electronic and digital prints for more than
30 years. Ctein resides in Daly City, California, in a house that overlooks
the ocean with his companion of 20 years, Paula Butler, along with too
many computers, 20,000 books, and two demented psittacines.

C H A PTE R 1

The Big Picture
“Where Do You Want to Go Today?”
When I sat down to plan this book, I quickly realized that the ideal photo
restoration workflow was an elusive and possibly even mythological
creature. Oh yes, in the broadest sense there’s a clear-cut pattern. Scan
the original photograph into your computer, use the image processing
program of your choice to correct the defects, print the fi nished photograph, and archive the restored digital image fi le. The organization of
this book reflects that flow.
The problem with that facile prescription is that it glosses over the
real work that’s hidden in the three magic words “correct the defects.”
The majority of this book is about satisfying that modest phrase. Hanging
over that is the larger and more serious question of just what it is you’re
after. Photo restoration covers a lot of territory. Goals are situational. For
example, are you trying to be historically accurate or aiming for the best
art? Depends on the job.
So, before diving into photo restoration, think about your situation
and contemplate the following questions:
• Who are you, and whose expectations matter?
• Who are you trying to make happy?
• Are you trying to re-create an historically accurate photograph?
• How important is the photograph and how much scrutiny might
it be subject to?
• How big will the restoration be?
Of course these are interrelated, but they provide a framework for organizing your thoughts.
Who Are You, and Whose Expectations Matter?
Are you doing a restoration to please yourself or to please a friend, relative, or client? Are you restoring the photograph as a hobby or favor, or
are you doing it professionally?

7

8

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-1 Digital restoration can easily restore a faded family snapshot like the one on the left. Most
of the improved tone and color in the restoration on the right results simply from making a good
scan, following the principles I present in Chapter 4. A little judicious cropping and burning-in produces a photograph that’s even better than the original.

The difference between a professional and a hobbyist in this case is
not one of skill or talent. It’s that the professional must satisfy a client
whose desires come first. Those needs control the kind of work you do.
Who Are You Trying to Make Happy?
Aunt Sarah and Uncle James will most likely be delighted with anything
you do to make that family photo look better (Figure 1-1). Their pleasure
is more important than perfection. A professional client who is paying
you big bucks for a restoration will likely demand considerably more of
your skills.
I’ve written this book from the point of view of the professional and
the perfectionist. I like feeling as if I’ve waved a magic wand that perfectly and invisibly undid the ravages of age. If I can take it one step
further and make that photograph into something that’s even nicer than
the original (Figure 1-2), better still. Making “the best of all possible
prints” from the damaged photograph is what makes me happy.
If you master all of the techniques I present in this book, I guarantee
you’ll be able to do restorations that will please just about anyone. But
you may not want nor need to go to the extremes I do. Don’t slavishly
follow my goals. Figure out what will satisfy you in a restoration, and
aim for that. I may take a restoration job from A to Z, but you may feel
that stopping at K is entirely satisfactory.
My obsession shouldn’t drive you. It’s possible to spend unlimited
amounts of time playing with a digital photograph, trying to make it
absolutely pixel-perfect. If that’s what tickles your fancy (it does mine),
that’s great. But if you’re doing professional restorations for clients,
they’re not going to want to spend unlimited amounts of money, and

“Where Do You Want to Go Today?”

Fig. 1-2 Digital tools can do more than repair damage. The original Kodachrome slide on the left
isn’t faded at all, although it is badly scratched. Restoration not only removes the scratches, it
improves detail in the shadows and highlights. The restoration on the right is a more attractive
photograph, overall.

you have to know when to call it quits. And if you’re doing restoration
for your own enjoyment, never ever forget that it’s about having fun. If
you reach the point where following still one more recommendation of
mine feels more like work than play, then don’t! You can achieve good
restorations without it.
Are You Trying to Re-Create an Historically Accurate Photograph?
If so, then it’s of paramount importance not to introduce any extraneous
detail that wasn’t there, nor to remove any significant detail from the
photograph. That can severely restrict the kind of gross repairs that you
can do, especially if entire pieces of the photograph are missing.
In Figure 1-3 there’s no important information that would be lost or
altered by cropping the photograph or cloning in the lawn to fi ll in the
missing areas. Figure 1-4 is another matter; there’s no way to repair the
two figures on the right to accurately show what they’re doing or even
who the rightmost man is. Artistically, we have a free hand in restoring
this photograph; historically, most defi nitely not.
More subtly, does the photo need to be technically accurate? That
will rarely be the case, but in Chapter 10, Examples, page 399, where I
restore an astronomical plate (Figure 1-5), I had to decide whether I
wanted a photograph that looked good or one that remained astronomically accurate. I went for “looking good” and invisibly repaired cracks
and gaps with bits of the star field brought in from intact parts of the
plate. Consequently, the “restored” image contains a certain number of
stars that don’t actually exist! Well, it’s my photograph, so it’s my call.
Were I doing this repair for an astronomer or a scientific collection, I
would not do that!
If the restoration requires accuracy, then you’ll need to know something about what photographs of that type are supposed to look like.

9

10

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-3 Specialized tools
like Image Doctor (see
Chapter 3) can fill in
missing parts of
photographs so perfectly
that you can’t tell where
the original leaves off
and the reconstruction
begins. It’s fi ne to take
such liberties when
historical accuracy is
unimportant.

James Reilly’s book, Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic
Prints (recommended in the Introduction), is a fi ne reference up through
the early part of the 20th century. I don’t know of any comparable book
for modern color images, so be prepared to do some research on what
the color photograph is supposed to look like if you’re asked to do an
accurate restoration.
Most of the time your goal will be artistic—make the best restoration
you can that looks good. This brings me to my next question for you.
How Important Is the Photograph, and How Much Scrutiny Might
It Be Subject To?
The ordinary family photograph that Aunt Sarah and Uncle James
proudly placed on their mantle is not going to be closely examined
nor subject to critical analysis. You can take many liberties in your

“Where Do You Want to Go Today?”

Fig. 1-4 Retouch with caution if historical accuracy matters. Tools like Photoshop’s Spot Healing
Brush and Image Doctor can make quick work of the missing patches in the original upper photograph. But, as the bottom photograph shows, you can’t restore detail that doesn’t exist. How you
“fi x” the half-obliterated man on the right depends on whether you want an artistic restoration or
a historically accurate one.

11

12

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-5 Scientifi c
photographs can be
digitally restored. In
Chapter 10, I describe,
step by step, how this
astronomical plate was
recreated from eight
broken shards of glass.

restoration as long as you remain true to the spirit of the photograph.
Slight carelessness in technique will never be noticed.
Photographs of historic events or famous personages as in Figure 1-6
(restored in Chapter 10, page 386), on the other hand, may receive closer
examination by future viewers. Minor details matter to the historian; a
missing button or frayed collar may tell them something about the fi nancial state of the subject when the photograph was made. Historians look
at time sequences of famous personages to gauge their health and guess
what effect the strains and joys of life and work may have had on them.
Even modest cosmetic retouching of the sort you would do to any ordinary portrait to make the person slightly more attractive can have the
effect of distorting history.
How Big Will the Restoration Be?
Most restorations are the same size as the originals or only modestly
enlarged. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not likely to need to make repairs down to the singlepixel level of detail. The more the original photograph is to be magnified in the fi nal print, however, the more detailed and extensive your
work has to be, because flaws and unrepaired damage that would
never be noticed in a life-sized reproduction will be obvious in a 3Ă&#x2014;
enlargement.

The Art (and Craft) of Restoration

13

Fig. 1-6 This Polaroid
photograph of a
mustachioed Dr. Richard
P. Feynman has historical
importance, so a proper
restoration should not
change any details of the
subject. See Chapter 10
to fi nd out how much
digital restoration can do
even when subject to
such restrictions.

This is not a quiz. You’re not going to be graded on your responses.
These are only questions to think about before you embark on a new
restoration. They’ll help you frame the problem in your head as you
contemplate the central matter: What restoration challenges will you
face?
The Art (and Craft) of Restoration
Most of the work I do to restore a photograph falls into one of the following five categories:
• Restoring tone
• Restoring color
• Fine-detail repairs and cleanup
• Major damage repairs
• Repairing uneven damage.
Restoring Tone
Photographs in need of restoration usually don’t have very good tonality.
Fading and staining will wash out blacks and make whites dingy and
dark. A severely faded photograph will have a very narrow tonal range.
A big part of restoration is expanding that compressed set of tones back
to its original natural brilliance.
You can accomplish a lot simply by making a good scan of the
photograph, and I’ve devoted Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the

14

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Computer, to that subject. As you’ll discover, the process requires some
care and attention to detail, but it’s a pretty cut-and-dried one.
Beyond merely getting an acceptable tonal range from black to white,
one must refi ne the tonal placement within the photograph so the highlights have their sparkle, shadow detail is brought out, and overall the
print conveys the feeling of a fresh, new photograph. This is where the
art and your talent and skill come in. Curves are a powerful tool for
achieving great tonality, and once you master them you’ll use them a
lot. They’re not the only tricks in the bag, though. The Shadow/Highlight
adjustment in Photoshop and dodging and burn-in adjustment layers
(see Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 160) go way beyond simple Curves
in their power.
Restoring Color
Both B&W and color photographs need their color restored. Some B&W
photographs will come to you with a pristine, neutral image, but in most
of them, what was originally black and white may now be brown and
white, brown and yellow, or even dark brown and not-so-dark brown.
Part of the restoration job is getting that photograph back to its original
hue. Not all photographs started out as true B&W; many of them were
sepia or brown in color. Still, it’s a pretty safe bet that the deteriorated
photo doesn’t have the color it did originally.
Color photographs (prints, slides, and negatives) almost always need
color restoration. That’s by far the most common reason someone will
ask to have a color photograph restored. Only occasionally does one turn
up where the color is just fi ne and there’s just physical damage.
Just as with B&W photos, a good scan helps a lot; it’s a necessary
prerequisite to doing good color restoration. Occasionally a scan will
accomplish most of the color restoration all by itself, as Figure 1-1 illustrates (I demonstrate this in Chapter 10, page 354). Most of the time,
unfortunately, a good scan will provide the raw data I need but no more
than that.
Curves are my constant companion, just as they were for restoring
tones, but they’re by no means the only tools I depend on for restoring
color. Hue and saturation controls are very important; I also make heavy
use of specialized plug-ins like Digital ROC.
Fine-Detail Repairs and Cleanup
Old photos invariably need to be cleaned up. They will be dirty and
scratched and have fi ne cracks or crazed surfaces or annoying textures.
Every photo you restore will have one or more of these defects to some
degree. This kind of fi ne-structure repair often consumes the majority
of the time I spend on a restoration. Much like picking up litter, it’s not
intellectually or artistically stimulating, and it’s tedious to do, but the

The Art (and Craft) of Restoration

landscape looks a lot nicer when I’m done. My way of dealing with this
is to put some music on so I don’t get too bored by the repetitive activity,
relax, and go at it.
I cover many tools in Chapter 8, Damage Control, that make this
work go faster. The right fi lters and plug-ins attack the noise and “litter”
more than the photographic image I’m trying to recover. I’ve a collection
of masking tricks that select for the garbage, so I can work on it more
aggressively (and quickly) without messing up the rest of the photograph. All of these aid the repair efforts, but they’re not a replacement
for close-in, pixel-by-pixel adjustments. They just make it much more
efficient.
Because the cleanup work itself isn’t very interesting, I don’t dwell
on it a lot in the Chapter 10, Examples. It’s sufficient to say, “I painted
over the scratches with such-and-such a fi lter with these settings.” That
tells you everything you need to know about how I did that bit of repair
work. That glosses over the important fact that executing that one
cleanup step may have taken me more time than all the preceding stages
of the restoration.
Major Damage Repairs
Now I’m talking about the big stuff like tears, missing emulsion, and
photos in pieces. These types of major repairs require very different tools
and approaches than the fi ne-structure cleanup I just talked about. The
damaged or obliterated areas are going to be larger than much of the
fi ne detail in the photograph, so I cannot use mechanical fi ll-in and
erasure tools.
Repairing these problems always requires some degree of re-creation
of detail. Sometimes it’s as easy as cloning in material from the surrounding area, as in Figure 1-3. Automated patching tools like Image
Doctor or healing brushes in Photoshop are a big help to me. Often,
though, these repairs require serious retouching and illustration creation
skills. I’ll be honest and admit that major retouching of this type is what
I’m worst at. That’s a big reason why I recommend Katrin’s book, because
she is so good at doing that.
Repairing Uneven Damage
I use the same tools for fi xing streaks and stains in a print or tarnished
and bleached spots that I use for correcting tone and color overall. The
difference is that I have to fi x those areas of the photograph separately
from the rest. One way to do that is with history brushes or cloning
between versions to paint in the corrections just where I want them. A
more powerful way to do it, when I can, is to create a special selection
or mask that contains only the differently damaged areas.

15

16

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

You’ve probably noticed that masking cropped up a lot in this list of
problems and approaches. That’s why I gave all of Chapter 7 over to
masking techniques. Masking doesn’t let you do much that you couldn’t
do by hand, but a good mask can save you most of that handwork by
automatically placing the corrections where you want them and preventing them from leaking over into other parts of the photograph.
Fooling Around
Figuring out how exactly I’ll repair a particular photo is, intellectually,
by far the toughest part of the job. Making the corrections may take me
a lot of time and work, anywhere from an hour to a day or more, but
that part of it doesn’t strain my brain. Mapping out the strategy which
will get me from “A” (lousy image) to “Z” (great photograph) is the tricky
bit.
The very fi rst thing I do when I get a new restoration job is to play
with it. I scan in a small version of the photograph. It can either be a
low-resolution image or a high-resolution scan of a small portion of the
entire photograph; often I do one of each. What I’m after is a small fi le
size, so that I can get it into the computer and mess around with it
quickly.
That fi rst scan gives me the lay of the land, to figure out just what I
have to work with and how far I might be able to take it. Many of the
photographs I restore come to me as unintelligible (and sometimes
nearly blank) pieces of paper, like Figure 1-7. I simply can’t tell by
looking at such photographs with the naked eye how much photographic
information is hidden in that tabula rasa, let alone how I might fi x it.

Fig. 1-7 Don’t assume a photograph is unrecoverable until you’ve tried scanning it! A careful scan,
using the procedures in Chapter 4, and some clever enhancement tricks (Chapter 5, page 167) can
extract amazing amounts of detail from nearly blank photographs. See Chapter 10, Example 8, for
the complete restoration process used on this photograph.

Fooling Around

Even after years of experience, I am frequently surprised by what’s
possible. I’ve learned not to tell clients whether I can give them a good
restoration based on my visual examination of the photograph. Too often
I’m wrong; I underestimate how much quality photographic data is
buried in that seemingly hopeless piece of paper or fi lm and how much
my hardware and software and skill can mine it.
Scanners excel at extracting the near-invisible. Using the guiding
principles from Chapter 4, I adjust the curves and levels in my scanner
software to pull out and emphasize as much of the real photographic
information as I can. Looking at that on my screen gives me a pretty
good idea of the potential I have to work with.
Once I can see the photograph more clearly, I decide what the biggest
and most obvious problems are. Some photographs have great tone and
color and lots of physical damage. Others are physically near-perfect but
badly stained or faded. Usually it’s a mix.
I don’t immediately dive into serious restoration. Even though my
time is money when I’m working on a job, I very consciously don’t
“work” with the photograph from the get-go. Instead, I just play, trying
out different tools and ideas, noodling around for 30 minutes or so,
trying out different approaches to fi nd out what will most effectively fi x
the photograph’s problems. Experience, of course, has given me a good
sense of which treatments are likely to be the best remedy for which ills,
but every photograph is different and has its little surprises. Hence, the
play time.
I try very hard to not be too goal directed. My objective is to figure
out where I want to take this photograph by learning what its potentials
are and which of my tools and techniques have the most promise for
bringing out that potential, not to drive myself in a prejudged direction.
I try different sharpening or blurring fi lters, experiment with different
masking tools that I have, explore different color-manipulation plug-ins.
When I fi nd something that feels like it might take me someplace interesting, I explore it further. It’s exploration for the sake of exploration
and the adventure of seeing where a photograph might take me. That’s
the mind-set I go into this with because, paradoxically, treating this as
play makes me more productive by making me more creative. It’s valuable because it helps me plan out my strategy and approach to that
restoration.
Once I’ve settled on a course of action, I make a good scan of the
photograph and save a copy of it. As I point out in Chapter 4, the kind
of scan I make depends on the tools I want to use and the quality of the
photograph. Looking at the test scan on the screen, I can see how much
fi ne detail there really is in the photograph and how it relates to the
physical damage and defects that I’m going to want to eliminate.
If the photograph isn’t very sharp to begin with, I may go with a
low-resolution scan that yields me a smaller, easier-to-work-with fi le.
On the other hand, if I think I’m going to do a lot of fi ne-detail enhancement on the photograph, I scan at higher resolutions than I would if I

17

18

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-8 This small
photograph is a good
candidate for a highresolution scan, even
though the picture isn’t
very sharp. A scan like
that will make it easier
to selectively repair
the cracks and creases,
as demonstrated in
Chapter 8.

only wanted to capture the visible detail in the photograph. If a photograph has lots of damage (like cracks all over the surface) that has much
fi ner detail than the actual photographic image does, I may choose to
scan at very high resolutions. Then I can use spatial fi lters (see page 292)
to pick out the cracks and crevices for repair without also selecting the
true image detail (Figure 1-8).
Don’t get the impression, though, that I’m starting out blind each
time I get a new photo to restore. Every restoration job, like every photograph, is unique, but it’s common for photographs of a similar nature
to have similar problems. For example, if someone asks you to restore a
mid-1960s color Polaroid print that’s been in an album, it’s likely that
the photograph won’t be really badly faded, but the colors will be poorly
saturated, with dull and veiled highlights.
Another commonality is that the further you roll back the clock, the
more likely the photograph will be physically damaged. There’s certainly
no shortage of recent photographs that have suffered trauma, and occasionally very old photographs are remarkably well cared for, but the
trend is undeniable. Water and mildew damage, even parts of the photograph eaten away by vermin, show up more and more frequently as
you go further into the past.
Based on my experience, the next section presents a list of the different categories of photographs you’re most often asked to restore,
roughly in order of commonness.

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration
Prints
Amateur snapshots, mid-20th century to present
B&W
Color
Commercial and school portraits, mid-20th century to present
B&W
Color
Polaroid
B&W
Color
Peel-apart style
SX-70-style
Old photographs (pre-1930s)
Professional photographs
Slides
Kodachrome
Other slide fi lms
Negatives
Color
B&W
Film
Glass plate
Newspaper Clippings
Let’s take a look at these various categories.
Prints
B&W amateur snapshots, mid-20th century to present There’s a good

chance that the photo won’t be badly stained or faded, but it will probably be somewhat low in contrast with grayish blacks because that’s what
the B&W photofi nishers usually delivered. The color is often nice and
neutral, but cheap albums take their toll, so many older photographs are

19

20

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-9 Mid-20thcentury B&W
photographs may show
some yellowing and mild
tarnishing, damage that
is easy to repair using
the techniques from
Chapter 9.

Fig. 1-10 B&W RC prints
can suffer serious
silvering-out and
bronzing problems. The
masking techniques in
Chapter 7 work well for
selecting this kind of
damage for repair.

brown or yellow where the silver image has broken down (Figure
1-9).
Prints from the 1950s and 1960s will likely have some cracks from
mishandling. Early resin-coated (RC) prints may have lots of fi ne cracking and crazing due to deterioration of the plastic layer carrying the
image. Displayed RC prints may have severe silvering-out and bronzing
problems; that is, there will be shiny or yellowish patches on the surface
of the print (Figure 1-10). Selective masking of the damaged areas (see
Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 244) works great on this.

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration

Color amateur snapshots, mid-20th century to present The more recent the

photograph, the better the color will be. If they haven’t been on display,
prints less than 25 years old won’t be too badly faded. They’ll have lost
some density and saturation, but it won’t be hard to bring them back
with a good scan. If you get prints that young to restore, it’s more likely
the restoration is needed because of physical damage than fading.
Older prints will have faded; prints from the early 1970s will mostly
be seriously damaged and those from the 1950s and 1960s may appear
hopeless at fi rst glance, looking almost blank like Figure 1-7. As you’ll
learn, it’s amazing what good scans and digital techniques can recover
even in those “hopeless” cases. Expect to see some uniform highlight
stain in all older color prints.
Photographs that have been on display are another problem entirely;
by the time they’re sent to you, they’ll probably be seriously faded. Textured papers, which were very popular in many periods, obscure the
image. I discuss some tricks in Chapter 8, page 305, for dealing with
them (Figure 1-11).
B&W commercial and school portraits, mid-20th century to present The

situation with commercial and school portraits isn’t much different than
it is for amateur snapshots, but these prints will have better contrast and
tonality than their amateur counterparts. The most likely kind of damage
you’ll see in younger prints will be physical problems such as cracking,
tears, and dirt. The further back you go, the more the prints will be
stained, but the staining is often uniform and so is easy to correct.
Unfortunately, the average quality of older print processing was much
poorer. Although quite a few are still in good shape, you see many portraits from the 1930s to early 1950s that have stained and turned brown
or even yellow.
Color commercial and school portraits, mid-20th century to present The

average quality and problems are no different from those you’ll encounter with amateur photographs. Low-cost commercial and school portraiture was very variable in quality. Some school photographs from 30
years ago look surprisingly good; others have changed color in all sorts
of bizarre ways (Figure 1-12).
Textured paper was very common, almost ubiquitous, for many
years. The more faded the color photograph is, the more intrusive the
texture will be after you restore it; the contrast increases you make to
restore the color also increase the contrast of the texture pattern. Expect
to have all the problems you would restoring an amateur color photograph, plus the paper texture to contend with.
B&W Polaroids Most B&W Polaroid prints needed lacquering to keep

the silver image from quickly oxidizing. The condition of old B&W
Polaroid prints depends on how well the photographer coated the print

21

22

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-11 Color portraits
are often printed on
textured paper that
obscures the scanned
image. Chapter 8 shows
you how to eliminate
that textured surface
from the restoration.

Fig. 1-12 Cheap school
portraits come in a
variety of (very wrong)
colors. Digital
restoration, using the
methods in Chapter 6,
can do a remarkable job
of restoring the original
color.

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration

23

Fig. 1-13 How much
B&W Polaroid prints fade
depends on how well
they were coated. These
two prints both date
from the same year in
the late 1960s and were
kept in the same album.

(Figure 1-13). You’ll see prints with streaks where the well-lacquered
portions still have good neutral B&W tones and the poorly coated streaks
have faded to brown or yellow. Selective masking is one way to isolate
those areas, but sometimes clever channel mixing will do the trick (see
Chapter 7).
I don’t know whether it’s because of their small size or stiffer paper,
but Polaroid prints are usually less cracked or torn than conventional
photographs of the same vintage. You’ll need to put in more work correcting uneven fading than repairing physical defects.
Color peel-apart Polaroids The peel-apart Polacolor prints have fairly

stable dyes when the prints aren’t on display. Prints from the 1960s and
1970s have usually faded much less than their conventional color counterparts. Polacolor color and tonal quality was not very good, though,
so you’ll almost always want to go the extra step in restoring these photographs to make them look better than they originally did (see Chapter
9, Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements). Expect older prints to have a greenish cast to them, especially in the highlights and skin tones, and whites
will be far from true white (Figure 1-14). Mostly you’ll be repairing
physical damage and improving the tone and color quality over what it
originally was. Simply making a carefully adjusted scan will often get
you pretty good color.
Prints on display are another matter. If they’ve been exposed to light,
Polacolor prints fade just as badly as conventional ones, sometimes
worse.

24

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-14 Peel-apart
Polacolor prints fade very
little when they’re kept
in albums. The poor color
of the original
photograph (upper) is
normal for this type of
print; careful scanning
and color adjustment can
make them look better
than new (lower).

Color SX-70-style Polaroids Just like the peel-apart prints, SX-70-type

prints hold up well in the dark, but poorly on display. They acquire a
yellowish highlight stain pretty quickly under all conditions, but it’s
usually uniform. Color improved with each successive generation of
these materials, but it was never as good as conventional color prints, so
my comments about improving the color of Polaroid prints apply here.
Because of their sturdy protective shell, these photographs usually
won’t be cracked, torn, or dirty, but they are subject to internal damage.
Some older SX-70-style prints develop internal cracks, crazing, or a fine
frost-like pattern that obscures the image (Figure 1-15).

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration

25

Fig. 1-15 Some Polaroid
SX-70 prints have
suffered internal damage.
Repair them the same
way you would a
photograph with fi ne
cracks or scratches on it
(see Chapter 8).

Old photographs (pre-1930s) These “vintage” photographs will almost

always be B&Ws. The whites invariably darken and turned anywhere
from pale tan to dark brown. The image itself may be faded, so the
overall contrast can be extremely low. The damage is often very nonuniform, so you’ll have to make local corrections to the tones as well as
overall ones. Dodging and burning masks (see Chapter 5, Restoring
Tone) are of considerable help.
All of the photos will have some degree of physical damage (Figure
1-16). Restoring the tonal range of a low-contrast photo exaggerates the
flaws; in extreme cases you’ll be dealing with “noise” that is almost as
strong as the “signal.” Very old photographs are often missing pieces of
the emulsion that will need to be re-created to make the photograph
look good again.
Many of the photographs will have “tarnished out”; there will be
shiny metallic-looking bronze or silver patches on the surface of the
photograph, especially in higher density areas (Figure 1-17). You’ll do
best to attack those with selective masking (Chapter 7, Making Masks,
page 244) so that you can correct those problems separately from the
rest of the photograph. Chapter 8, Damage Control, page 298, tells you
how to repair tarnish.
You’ll see a fair number of hand-tinted B&W portraits. They will
present you with challenging questions, not technical in nature, but
artistic. If the goal is to produce a good-looking, hand-tinted portrait,
modern tastes and sensibilities around such work are very different from
those of 50 to 100 years ago. By today’s standards, you may get a more
pleasing photograph by eliminating the tinting entirely (not difficult)
and turning it into a straight B&W photograph.

26

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-16 The older the
photograph, the more
likely it is to be physically
damaged. At the very
least there will be dust,
dirt, and scratches; in
many cases there will be
cracks and tears.

If your objective is to produce an historically accurate restoration,
then you’ll need to know a lot about the tools and techniques, not to
mention the aesthetics, of the era when the photograph was made. The
tints you see in the damaged photograph will not be representative of
the original hues, and anything that you do to restore proper tone and
contrast and eliminate stain and yellowing will alter the colors in ways
you can’t predict.
Professional photographs Professional photographers usually took better

care of their photographs than amateurs, and the photographs were
usually made with more care and processed better. Until we get back
into the “vintage” era, professional photographs for the most part look
better than comparable amateur ones. The most notable exception is that
color prints will fade regardless of how well they were processed
(although the cheap processing of many cheap commercial portraits
significantly accelerated their fading), so old professional color prints
may look just as bad as amateur ones of the same era. Except for color
dye fading, though, you’re more likely to get a modern professional
photograph to restore because it’s suffered physical damage than because
it’s badly in need of tone and color correction.

Slides
Kodachrome I’ve never seen a badly faded Kodachrome slide, and neither
will you, unless it’s one that has been projected a lot. Kodachrome dyes
are extremely stable in the dark, although they fade rapidly in the light.
If you get a Kodachrome slide to restore, it will probably need very little
tone or color correction (Figure 1-2). More probably you’ll be asked to
restore it because it is physically damaged. Water and mildew damage
repair are common restoration jobs; occasionally a slide will get mishandled and badly scratched.
Other slide films Recent non-Kodachrome slide fi lms are pretty stable.
As with Kodachromes, you are more likely to be doing restoration work
to correct physical damage than fading. Go back to the 1960s and it’s a
different matter; just as with color prints, you’ll be looking at slides that
have faded or stained. Slides from the 1950s will be in extremely poor
shape. If they aren’t brick-red (Figure 1-18), they will be very badly
darkened and stained.
In either case, color correction tools like Digital ROC can work miracles. The hard part will be getting a good scan. Most of the slides will
have one or more dye layers that have faded very little, so the overall
density range in the slide can be quite high. See Chapter 4 and Chapter
9 for ways to deal with this.

27

28

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

Fig. 1-18 Excellent
restorations are possible
from severely faded
slides, such as this
Ektachrome from the
early 1950s. See Chapter
10, page 372, for the
step-by-step details of
how I completely
restored this photograph.

Negatives
Even though the majority of photographs made in the last 50 years has
been negatives, most of the time you’ll work on a deteriorated print.
Usually that will be because the client doesn’t have the negative, but it
never hurts to ask. Original negatives, B&W or color, almost always
permit better restoration than the prints made from them.
Color negatives This is not to say that negatives don’t deteriorate. In fact,

color negative fi lms are among the least stable of all types of films, and
older ones were especially bad. Physically, the color negatives are likely
to be in pretty good shape; they’ve probably never come out of their
folders and sleeves since they came back from the photofi nisher. You
won’t have unusual numbers of scratches and dirt specks to clean up.
The most common physical damage I see in old color negatives is due
to poor processing. There may be long scratches down the fi lm or water
spots; sometimes there are surge or flow marks where the developing
chemicals didn’t bathe the negative evenly. Mildew damage is a less
common occurrence.
Most of the time you will be faced with a clean but uniformly faded
negative. Your task will be to figure out the major tone and color adjustments needed to produce a correct-looking print. There will be serious
dye loss; the fading will be at least as bad as with very old color slide
fi lms. Color correction will be a major challenge.
What makes it possible to do good restorations from old color negatives is that they recorded a lot more information than ever gets conveyed in a print. Most of that information can get lost through fading
and still leave you with plenty for producing an excellent photograph.
As with slides, special color correction tools can automate a lot of this
color and tone restoration for you. Unlike slides, you won’t encounter

A Modest Taxonomy of Restoration

29

Fig. 1-19 Old B&W
negatives, like this
cellulose nitrate negative
from the early 20th
century, are usually very
contrasty. That makes
them hard to scan, but
Chapter 9, page 316, tells
you how to do it well.

color negatives with extremely high densities, so scanning will be much
less tricky than it is with slides and old B&W negatives.
B&W film negatives Modern acetate-based B&W negatives don’t usually
present a lot of fading problems. Properly processed B&W negatives are
extremely stable, but they may not have been stored properly or washed
well when they were processed. Physical damage is the most likely
reason someone will send you a B&W negative, so you’ll mostly be cleaning up dust, scratches, and tears and correcting for a little bit of unevenness in density.
Before acetate “safety” fi lm, there were nitrate-based B&W fi lms.
Those negatives will all have some degree of staining and yellowing,
from modest to severe. The silver image densities will usually be pretty
good, even if they’ve turned brown (Figure 1-19). In fact, these old fi lms
had so much contrast to begin with that scanning them will be difficult.
A somewhat faded negative may actually prove easier to work with.
(Caution: these negatives can be brittle with age, so handle with care!)

30

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

B&W glass plate negatives Glass plate negatives, like vintage B&W prints,
turn up in all kinds of condition, often in pieces! Fortunately, reassembly
on the computer is much simpler than in real life (see Chapter 10,
Examples). Really old plates may have bleached out almost to the point
of invisibility; others will not have faded at all. In the least-faded photographs, the long density ranges of these old materials will make getting
a good scan challenging. Other than fi xing broken plates, restoring glass
negatives is no different from restoring fi lm ones.

Newspaper Clippings
As long as the paper isn’t so brittle and fragile that you dare not handle
it, the condition of newspaper clippings and halftone photographs doesn’t
matter a lot. The nature of the printing inks used means that they will
rarely be faded even if the paper is badly stained or discolored. You can
expect good contrast between the halftone ink dots and the paper. Since
the paper is supposed to be white, and the ink dots are supposed to be
black, and there aren’t any tones in between, scanning halftones is easy
(see Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the Computer).
What you will fi nd challenging about working with a halftone is
eliminating (or at least minimizing) the screen pattern—a good percentage of your clients will want to know if you can turn the halftone into
a “nice photograph.” Very often the answer is yes. The trick is to do this
without blurring out much of the photographic detail (Figure 1-20). I
provide some software techniques for that in Chapter 9, Tips, Tricks, and
Enhancements, page 320.
Take Your Time
If you’re new to photo restoration or even digital print making, don’t be
in a hurry to do great work. You won’t achieve a wonderful result the
fi rst time you restore a photo. I don’t think it’s so much that the learning
curve is steep as that doing digital work well requires knowing a great
deal of information.
That’s true of any craft, including wet darkroom printing. But with
material crafts it takes a while to physically master the tools and become
proficient in their handling. I haven’t found printing on the computer
to be more conceptually difficult than darkroom printing, but the darkroom forced me to ease into the knowledge because there was so much
physicality to get under control. The computer lets you jump right into
the deep end of the pool.
For example, you don’t have to learn any more about masking to do
good tonal control on the computer than you do in the darkroom. But
it will take you days or even weeks to master darkroom techniques for
making masks, during which time you mentally assimilate the concepts.
On the computer you can learn the technique in a matter of minutes

Take Your Time

Fig. 1-20 Even screened newspaper photographs can be restored and turned into acceptable photographs. Chapter 9 presents several ways to clean them up.

31

32

CHAPTER 1 The Big Picture

and make technically perfect masks with a couple of mouse clicks.
Then you discover it’s still going to take you weeks to internalize the
knowledge.
Subjectively this makes it seem as if the computer stuff is much
harder. It’s only that it takes time to digest the knowledge. Even if you
can push the buttons on the computer in 5 seconds, you can’t (so to
speak) push the buttons in your brain that fast.
One thing I have learned is that it’s very difficult is to spend “an idle
half hour” doing digital photographic work. It’s just as hard as spending
only 30 minutes doing serious printing in the darkroom. It takes time
to get your head into the right place, think about what you’re doing, and
do it well. Once you’ve really internalized the techniques, you can do
productive work quickly. While you’re learning what you are doing, you
need to allow yourself several hours at a time so that you can play with
the tools and controls and feel comfortable and not be distracted by
watching the clock. You need to take the time to experiment enough to
get a feel for how different changes have different effects. Don’t be
utterly goal directed; explore different paths and ideas, try different
techniques and settings. That’s what Undo commands and the original
scan fi le that you saved are for: to let you explore without being committed. Digital restoration is a process of exploration. No two damaged
photos are quite alike, and there’s no completely fi xed routine for handling them. Learn to play.

C H A PTE R 2

Hardware for Restoration
The “Bottom” Line
Here’s the short form: The most important thing is to have lots of
memory, as much as you can afford. Next comes plenty of hard-disk
space and media to archive data off site (external or removable hard
drives or CDs). Spend your money on these priorities instead of buying
a faster computer.
For your display, get either a CRT (TV-type tube) or a good liquid
crystal display (LCD). Don’t get an inexpensive LCD. For scanning prints
in and printing out your fi nished restorations, you don’t need to spend
more than $250 to $500 apiece on a flat-bed scanner or printer.
The rest of this chapter goes into more technical detail about computer hardware—more detail than most people need to do good
restorations. If you’re interested in the whys and wherefores of my recommendations, read on. Otherwise, just read the sidebar on page 48,
and you’re ready for the next chapter.

The Computer
Just about any computer bought since about 2001 can handle digital
restoration. A newer machine is likely to make the work go faster, but
it won’t make it any better. I work on a several-year-old Athlon XP
2400+ system with 2 gigabytes (GB) of RAM, 360 GB of hard-drive
storage, and a 19-inch Hitachi RasterOps CRT monitor. You could put
together a comparable system today for under $1000.
While I have my personal preferences, I can’t come up with many
objective reasons for deciding between a Mac or Windows machine. I
really like Macs; I prefer the interface and the way it handles color management more than Windows. On the other hand, the low-cost image
processing program I think the most highly of, Picture Window, only
runs under Windows. If you have an older Mac, you can run Picture
Window under Virtual PC, but don’t expect it to be fast. I write a bit
more about that in the next chapter. The Intel-based Macs can natively

33

34

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

run Windows as well as Mac OS; they may offer the best of both worlds
in one machine.
If you’re thinking about buying a new computer to replace an older
one, keep in mind that most software manufacturers don’t offer very
good bargains for cross-platform software purchases, if they offer them
at all. Switching from Mac to PC or vice versa can cost you far more in
replacement software than you paid for the computer. By historical
accident, most of my graphics software is for Windows. It would be too
costly and inconvenient to switch over. That is why, despite having a
moderate preference for Macs, I prepared all the photographs in this
book under Windows.
I recommend your computer have both FireWire and USB 2 ports.
Macs do; PCs often don’t. If your computer didn’t come with both, buy
an I/O board with extra USB 2 and FireWire ports. They’re very cheap.
The reason I recommend this is that a lot of professional digital equipment uses FireWire. For example, my medium-format fi lm scanner, a
Minolta DiMAGE Scan Multi Pro, has ultrawide SCSI and FireWire
interfaces but no USB interface. There are some technical arguments
about which kind of interface performs better for which kind of tasks,
but for most of you this will be less important than simply being able to
run the peripheral devices you want to use. Keeping your machine versatile gives you more options.
These days I don’t think you need SCSI ports. Hardly any new devices
I know of have only SCSI interfaces. Even fast external hard-drive
arrays, the last great bastion of SCSI, are being challenged by FireWire
arrays. On the other hand, if you want to invest in older hardware
(charmingly referred to as “legacy” technology), you may need a SCSI
card. My fi ne Umax Powerlook III flat-bed scanner, for example, only
has SCSI I/O, as do some of my older external storage devices.
Memory
More important than a fast CPU and hard drive is buying as much
memory (RAM) as you can afford. Digital scans can get extremely large.
A color photograph scanned at 16 bits per channel produces 6 bytes of
data per pixel. If you’re scanning at 600 pixels per inch (ppi), you’re
collecting 2 megabytes (MB) of image data per square inch of original
print. That’s more than 50 MB for a mere 4-inch by 6-inch print and
more than 150 MB for an 8-inch by 10-inch print.
If you scan your original at 8 bits per channel, that cuts the fi le size
in half, but if your original needs to be scanned at 1200 ppi instead of
600, the fi le size quadruples! For example, an 8-bit-per-channel scan at
1200 ppi of that 4-inch by 6-inch print will saddle you with a 100-MB
fi le (Table 2-1).
Programs like Photoshop and Picture Window eat up memory very,
very quickly. The old rule about needing an amount of RAM equal to

Memory

35

Table 2-1 Scan Sizes
File Sizes of Color Scans (MB)

2″ × 3″
4″ × 5″
5″ × 8″
8″ × 10″

300 ppi
8 bits

300 ppi
16 bits

600 ppi
8 bits

600 ppi
16 bits

1200 ppi
8 bits

1200 ppi
16 bits

2400 ppi
8 bits

2400 ppi
16 bits

1.6
5.4
11
22

3.2
11
22
43

6.5
22
43
85

13
43
85
175

26
85
175
345

52
175
345
690

105
345
690
1350

205
690
1350
2750

three to five times the fi le size doesn’t work any longer. If you have less
than 10 times the fi le size in available RAM, your program is going to
end up writing scratch fi les to the hard drive. Doing really fancy work
in Photoshop might push that up to 20 times.
What does that mean for performance? Everything in the world!
Reading and writing data to the fastest hard drive is 10 times slower
than handling that same data in RAM. Your image processing program
will slow down by three to five times the instant that hard-drive access
light comes on and stays on. When it comes to real-world performance,
you’ll almost always be better off buying a machine with a slower processor and more RAM.
How much RAM is enough? Get at least 2 GB. More is good. This is
one area where Macs currently have it over Windows machines; they
handle large amounts of RAM (over 2 GB) more gracefully. That will
change with the release of 64-bit Windows, but for the present if you
want a machine that supports really large amounts of RAM, your best
bet is a dual-processor Mac.
It’s not easy calculating your total memory requirements. Usually
you fi nd out you don’t have enough memory when something goes
wrong. Figuring out your needs is difficult because different operations
may all fight for the same memory, but they’re not all operating all the
time, so you may not realize you don’t have enough RAM to satisfy them
all.
For photo restoration work there are four main consumers of memory:
the operating system, the image processing software, plug-ins for that
software, and the printer driver and print spooler. Those last two categories of memory consumers are what most people don’t plan for.
A program like Photoshop lets you set how much of the available
RAM it will use. It’s common on systems with plenty of RAM to give
Photoshop 80% of what’s available. On my Windows 2000 machine with
2 GB of RAM, for example, that would leave 400 MB for the operating
system. I can check the Task Manager to see what the OS is routinely
consuming; it’s almost always below 250 MB. It would seem, then, that

36

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

Fig. 2-1 It takes
considerable memory to
print out large files. If
your print preview shows
a truncated picture like
this one, it means you
don’t have enough free
RAM available to the
system. Reduce by 10%
the amount of RAM
assigned to Photoshop in
its memory preferences,
and try printing again.

I’d be safe with the 80%-for-Photoshop setting and have plenty of RAM
left over for momentary demands.
It doesn’t work that way. If I try to print out my largest photographs,
which are 20 to 30 million pixels in size, I run out of memory with
Photoshop set for 80% RAM consumption. I don’t get a warning that
I’m out of memory, but the printer preview window shows a truncated
photograph with some lower part of it missing (Figure 2-1). That is not
an artifact of the preview; if I print the photograph, it’ll be truncated.
Why? The software that converts the photograph to printer data uses
a lot of RAM while it’s creating that printer fi le. If it runs out of RAM
before it has fully rendered the fi le, it doesn’t abort the process; instead
it sends off an incomplete photograph. The fi x is easy: Decrease the
amount of RAM that’s given dedicated to Photoshop so the operating
system has more. Setting it down to 70% usually works; setting it down
to 60% always works.
In that case, why not just leave Photoshop using only 60% of RAM
or even less, just to be safe? One reason is that when Photoshop runs
out of RAM, it starts swapping to disk. It’ll keep running, but it runs
much more slowly. A more serious problem is that third-party plug-ins
generally have to use the same RAM that Photoshop does, but they can’t
use a scratch disk as Photoshop can. If I open up a large fi le with Photoshop set for only 50% or 60% of RAM, some of my plug-ins will report
that they can’t function because they’ve run out of RAM. So, it’s back

The Monitor

up to 80% for Photoshop, at least until I need to print again. Getting
this all to behave well on your computer is a trial-and-error process.
Simply adding more RAM doesn’t necessarily solve the problem.
Above 2 GB of RAM, some software can’t take advantage of the extra
memory. Some functions need to work in the lower 2 GB of RAM. If
there’s insufficient memory available to satisfy those functions, additional RAM above the 2-GB limit won’t help.
The reason I’m bringing up such examples is that I’ve seen many
photographers run into these RAM limits and be confused by the erratic
and peculiar behavior of their computers. If you see unusual behavior
by your program, or if it fails to complete an operation or does it only
halfway, the fi rst place to check is the amount of RAM that’s available
for the program. That’s especially true when plug-ins abort or printers
fail to print out complete photographs.
The Monitor
A good LCD monitor will serve you just as well as the traditional “glass
onion.” CRTs have an edge when it comes to contrast range and the
gamut of colors they can display, unless you’ve got many thousands of
dollars to spend, but in my opinion the differences aren’t great enough
to matter for restoration work. In either case a good monitor profi le will
have a bigger effect on how accurately you can work (see Chapter 3,
Software for Restoration, page 52).
A good LCD is more expensive than a CRT of comparable quality.
Although you can buy very inexpensive LCD panels, these are not suitable for serious photographic work. Lesser quality LCDs don’t display a
uniform image over the entire screen; there are large variations in
brightness and gamma with the vertical viewing angle.
You can observe this on the LCD display of any laptop computer by
bringing up an image that has a lot of dark tones in it. (It’s hard to see
this problem looking at bright colors and light grays and whites.) Tilt
the screen toward and away from you, and observe how drastically the
darker tones and the blacks change in appearance as the angle of the
screen changes (Figure 2-2).
Even after you rigidly fi x the angle at which you view a cheap LCD,
you will still have viewing-angle problems from the top to the bottom
of the screen. This is readily seen by looking at a large and uniform dark
gray image. You can create one in your image processing program by
opening up a new image window, setting the foreground color to a gray
value of about 65, and fi lling the window with the paint bucket. The
image should look uniformly charcoal gray over the entire screen. On a
poor LCD monitor, it will look much darker at the top of the screen than
at the bottom (Figure 2-3). This variation makes it impossible to do
accurate photographic work. The more expensive LCD panels, starting
in the high hundreds of dollars, don’t have this problem.

37

38

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

Fig. 2-2 Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t buy an LCD monitor whose gamma (midrange brightness) changes like this one when
you tilt the screen toward or away from you. Cheap desktop monitors (and laptop displays) have this
problem; more expensive displays show you a consistent image over a wide range of viewing
angles.

Storage and Backup

39

Fig. 2-3 This is a
photograph of a laptop
LCD screen that is
displaying a uniform gray
image with a value of 65.
The difference in
brightness from top to
bottom is caused by
changes in gamma with
viewing angle. You can’t
use a display like this for
precision photographic
work!

When you go shopping for an LCD monitor, check it out by viewing
a dark image and tilting the screen toward and away from you, top to
bottom. If you see large brightness changes when you do that, don’t buy
that monitor. Shop around until you fi nd one that looks the same over
a wide range of vertical viewing angles. It will be fi ne for serious photographic work.
If you’re not a games player, just about any professional-grade video
card will be fi ne for doing photo restoration. The Matrox G650 sells for
around $150, and I’ve got no complaints about its performance. If you’re
heavily into computer games, you’ll probably have to spend more money
to get a stable card that’s also a good games performer. Today’s state-ofthe-art games want lots of RAM and powerful hardware graphics
rendering.
Make sure your video card uses hardware “color look-up tables”
(CLUTs) if you want to do monitor color management. I think you’d be
hard pressed to fi nd a decent video card today that doesn’t have this,
but if you have any doubts, query the manufacturer before purchasing.
You can download a utility from Digital Light & Color (http://www.
dlc.com) that will test your existing card for hardware CLUT support.
Storage and Backup
When we contemplate data storage for computers, we normally think in
the short term. Our fi rst concern is the immediate one: How much harddrive space to buy. Then we think about how we back up our system in
case the operating system crashes or a hard drive fails.
The more prudent among us think about off-site backups, ensuring
that a copy of the data on our hard drives is stored someplace other than
the home or office where our computer is. That way a major disaster at

40

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

the computer’s location results in a loss of only hardware, which is easily
replaceable. Still, this is thinking about the short term; backups go out
of date pretty fast.
Restoring photographs engages us in a whole new concept of time.
Months and years are minor matters; it’s decades and possibly even
centuries that concern us. The photographs we restore may be as young
as 15 years or as old as 150 years, but we’re restoring them because
they’re important to us and didn’t last. One of the great promises of
digital restoration is that in principle the restored photographs can last
indefi nitely.
The last chapter of this book, Archiving and Permanence (Chapter
12), covers this in detail. As I argue there, currently the two best ways
to store your fi les are CDs and hard drives. In terms of convenience,
durability, and cost per bit, both media are excellent. One advantage of
storing your fi les on CDs is that this approach doesn’t require much
additional money; your machine probably already has a CD burner.
High-quality CD blanks are inexpensive. The (relatively!) small capacity
and low price of CDs can be handy, especially if you want to distribute
work to several people.
Removable hard-drive storage requires a bit more of an investment,
but the cost per bit becomes very competitive when your storage requirements mount up into the hundreds of gigabytes. Hard drives have gotten
incredibly cheap; they cost no more per gigabyte than high-quality CD
blanks. You have to buy your storage in chunks that cost tens of dollars
instead of tens of pennies, but it’s hard to beat the convenience and
compactness of a hard drive.
For as little as $20, you can buy a removable hard-drive bay or drawer
for your computer that lets you use standard IDE hard drives as removable media (Figure 2-4). A hard-drive bay is a hollow shell into which

Fig. 2-4 Ordinary IDE
hard drives, installed in
removable hard-drive
trays, are great for
external and off-site file
storage. They are as
cheap per gigabyte as
CDs, and they’re much
faster than any other
storage medium.

Storage and Backup

you plug trays or caddies that contain ordinary internal hard drives. The
bay is attached to the data bus of your computer; it has internal connectors that mate with the tray to connect the hard drive to the computer.
You install a drive in a caddy, plug the caddy into the bay, and read and
write data to it just as if it were a regular hard drive inside your computer. There’s no muss, no fuss, and you don’t need special software, as
when burning CDs. Because of the interface circuitry, these bays are
sometimes not quite as fast as hard drives installed directly on your
machine, but they will still be much, much faster than reading and
writing data to CDs.
With hard-drive caddies, a year’s worth of work can fit on a single
drive and go into your safe deposit box for safekeeping and security. A
hard-drive bay also means you’ll likely never run out of internal harddisk storage. You can reserve your internal hard drives for the critical
stuff like your applications, scratch fi les, and those fi les and documents
you really need to have on your machine all the time. Everything else
can go on removables.
Removable drive units come in all sorts of flavors. CompUSA sells
$20 IDE hard-drive drawers that sit in one of the normal drive slots in
your desktop computer. At that price the very fi rst hard drive you set up
this way will save you money over buying a self-contained external
drive.
Disadvantages of this least-expensive solution are that the bay
takes up one of your physical slots and uses up one of the four IDE
ports. In addition, IDE bay drives are usually not hot-swappable. That
means that you have to shut down your computer when you want
to change hard-drive cartridges. If you try to change cartridges while
the computer is on, the least that will happen is that your operating
system will be very confused and unable to recognize the new cartridge
until you reboot. The worst is that you can destroy data on your
drives.
For more money, you can get hot-swappable bays that connect
through your USB 2 or FireWire port. The trays still use those inexpensive internal IDE drives; the bay contains “glue” circuitry that couples
the drive’s IDE bus to the USB or FireWire. You don’t have to worry
about it; just plug the drive in and let the electronics take care of the
interfacing. These bays are considerably more expensive, but they let you
treat the hard-drive tray like any other removable storage medium. You
can insert and remove hard-drive cartridges without having to power
down and reboot. If you’re maintaining duplicate backups—as you
should when archiving—that’s a big convenience factor.
Drive bays are also available as external devices, usually for more
money. They’re good if you don’t have a spare slot in your computer case
or if you want to move the bay between different computers. One source
(among many) for external bays and USB and FireWire bays is Weibetech. They’re not inexpensive, but they’re well regarded.

41

42

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

Scanners
Flat-bed scanners that cost no more than several hundred dollars will
do quite well for restoration work. They are limited in their ability to
capture very high densities and extremely fi ne detail. Fortunately, you’ll
fi nd that 99% of the time the print to be restored isn’t very contrasty;
sometimes it’s so faded as to be almost invisible (Figure 2-5). Being able
to capture high densities with the scanner just isn’t very important.
Similarly, resolution won’t be a major worry; you’ll hardly ever find an
old photo that you need to scan at more than 1200 ppi.
On the other hand, being able to capture at 16-bit depth is critical.
You won’t always need to scan your originals at 16 bits per channel, but
some originals will be so badly faded or distorted in tone and color that
you’ll need to capture the most subtle differences if you want to get a
good-looking restoration. These days my habit is to scan everything at
16-bit depth and decide later whether I need to keep all those bits or
downconvert to 8-bit color. Mostly, I hang on to all the data.
Based on these considerations, just about any midrange flat-bed
scanner you can buy today will do for restoring prints. One feature to
consider, if your budget permits, is a fi lm adapter for the flat-bed scanner.
Usually these take the form of a special lid that includes a light source
so that the original can be illuminated from the back instead of from
the front as you would with a reflection print (Figure 2-6). In some
scanners there’s a separate tray for loading fi lm into the scanner.
The advantage of a flat-bed scanner is that it does not cost a great
deal of money to get the capability of scanning 5-inch by 7-inch and 8inch by 10-inch fi lms and glass plates. Dedicated fi lm scanners for anything larger than 120 roll fi lm format are extremely expensive. Old fi lm
that is not the same size as modern standard formats (and much of it
isn’t) is sometimes physically difficult to scan with a dedicated fi lm
scanner, which may have fi lm carriers that can only accommodate specific formats.
Be aware that older fi lms and glass plates, unlike prints, frequently
have extremely high density ranges, even when they are damaged and
faded. They can also have lots of fi ne detail that will require scanning
at high resolutions to capture. If you’re going to be regularly scanning
old B&W sheet fi lm or glass plates, you’ll probably have to spend $1000+
on a high-quality, flat-bed scanner. For occasional use, a lot less’ll do
you.
A fi lm adapter for a flat-bed scanner is not a substitute for a dedicated
fi lm scanner for smaller formats; such a scanner will almost always
capture the fi lm with much better resolution, more accuracy, and a
longer density range. If you plan to work from roll fi lm or 35-mm originals, seriously consider buying a high-quality fi lm scanner. The quality
you will get from a fi lm scanner will almost always run rings around
flat-bed scans.

Scanners

Fig. 2-5 Old photographs (upper) often look hopelessly faded to the naked eye. A good scanner,
used properly (see Chapter 4), can recover an amazing amount of detail thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s nearly invisible to us
(lower).

43

44

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

Fig. 2-6 Get a scanner
with a film-scanning lid
like this one. Then you’ll
be able scan prints, sheet
film, and glass plates for
restoration. A dedicated
film scanner, though, will
serve you better for
scanning roll and 35-mm
films.

Fig. 2-7 DIGITAL ICE,
built into many film
scanners as part of the
DIGITAL ICE 3 package, is
the fi rst line of defense
against dust and
scratches. This
Kodachrome slide was
scanned without (left)
and with (right) DIGITAL
ICE. DIGITAL ICE
sometimes doesn’t work
well on Kodachrome
slides, but it worked fi ne
with this one.

Make sure you get a fi lm scanner that includes DIGITAL ICE3.
DIGITAL ICE3 scanner software has three tools: DIGITAL ICE, DIGITAL
GEM, and DIGITAL ROC. DIGITAL ICE removes scratches and dirt from
color scans amazingly well (Figure 2-7). It does not work with silverbased B&W fi lms (although it will work fi ne with chromogenic ones like
Ilford XP2), and sometimes it won’t work for Kodachrome slides. In all
other cases, it does a vastly better job of eliminating dirt and scratches
than any post-scanning software can.

Printers

DIGITAL ROC (which restores color) and GEM (which reduces noise
and grain) have plug-in counterparts (page 61), so it’s not absolutely
necessary to have them built into your scanner, but I still think it’s a
good idea. The scanner versions work differently from the plug-ins, and
the capabilities of the two versions complement each other. In addition,
the scanner versions have access to the raw scanner data, and sometimes
this can make a big difference in the quality of the results. For example,
the scanner’s DIGITAL ROC does a really good job with contrasty originals because it works on the raw scanner data before the regular scanner
software “corrects” brightness and contrast. In Chapter 10, Examples,
the only way I could capture the entire range of the slide in Example 4
in a single scan was by using DIGITAL ROC (Figure 2-8), and it did the
job beautifully.
Printers
As little as 5 years ago I would’ve gone on at some length about just
what kind of printer you ought to buy. I’d have discussed the pros and
cons of inkjet versus dye sublimation printers and the differing characteristics of the pigment-based and dye-based ink sets. I’d have spent a
lot of time talking about comparative print longevity, tonality, color
gamut, and overall print quality.
My considered opinion is that this is all now water under the bridge.
Spend several hundred dollars, and you will get a printer capable of
making excellent and long-lived prints. It doesn’t matter whether you’re
buying a current, top-tier Epson, Canon, HP, Kodak, or Olympus printer.
Prints right out of the box are going to look very good; prints made with
a custom profi le (see Chapter 11, Printing Tips) are going to look excellent. Meaningfully distinguishing between printers requires full-length
reviews of each one, just the sort of articles I write for the photography
magazines that run several thousand words. I don’t think you bought
this book to read 20,000 words worth of printer reviews. It used to be
true that one could make important statements about print longevity
and color gamuts that were true across all printers of a particular class.
That’s not the case any longer. If one has faith in the accelerated tests,
on average, pigment-based inkjet prints will have a longer life than dyebased inkjet prints, but some brands of dye-based prints have longer lives
than some of the pigment-based prints.
Besides, any of these printers produces prints that will last on display
for many decades and in albums and storage for considerably longer.
Overall, these new digital prints are likely to prove much more stable
than the original photographs on which they were based.
Personally, I take published longevity numbers with a big grain of
salt; there’s still a lot we don’t know about these new media. But that
doesn’t give me any reason to favor one class of print over the other.
Uncertainty applies across the board, and all we can do is take the
numbers at face value and keep our fi ngers crossed.

45

46

CHAPTER 2 Hardware for Restoration

Fig. 2-8 DIGITAL ROC is available as part of the DIGITAL ICE 3 scanner software and as a Photoshop plug-in. (a) This Ektachrome
E-1 slide from the early 1950s is badly faded and too dark. (b) The same slide scanned with DIGITAL ROC turned on. Great color
and good tonality, automatically! (c) The green channel (magenta dye image) from part (a). Without DIGITAL ROC the scanner
was unable to pull out any shadow detail. (d) The green channel recovered by DIGITAL ROC, from part (b).

The prints wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t all look alike. I defi nitely have my personal preferences, and so does every other fi ne printer I know, but those preferences
are completely personal and subjective. I can tell you that I use an Epson
2200 printer and like it a lot, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no assurance that you would like
it is much as I do or that it would be your best choice. Continuing in

Printers

47

this vein, I see less and less difference every year in the kind of print
densities and color gamuts produced by pigment-based and dyed-based
inks. Again, on average, dye-based ink prints will have higher maximum
densities and larger color gamuts than pigment-based prints. But just as
with longevity, this is merely an average for which there are notable
exceptions; some of the kinds of pigment-based prints are defi nitely
superior in all respects to some of the dye-based prints. Even the average
quality difference is becoming less significant; pigment inks have been
getting better faster than dye inks.
Another nonissue is printer resolution. By that I mean the “dpi” that’s
given in the printer manufacturer’s specs. That droplet-per-inch value is
now so high that it’s been years since I tested any printer where the
individual droplets were visible at a normal viewing distance. More ink
drops are only loosely connected to the actual resolution of the printer
(see the sidebar for an explanation of how dpi and ppi have gotten confused). I realize this doesn’t give you very much specific information to
go on when selecting a printer. Sometimes, though, it can be very valuable knowing what not to pay attention to.
What would I get? Well, if money and office space were no object,
there’s no one printer I’d get. I’d buy three (as of early 2006): an Epson
Stylus Photo R2400 (Figure 2-9), a Canon i9900 (Figure 2-10), and an
HP Designjet 130 (Figure 2-11). All of them produce great-looking, longlived prints. Each of them does something the others don’t. Your printing

needs and priorities won’t be the same as mine. That’s why I won’t tell
you what to buy.
That’s it for hardware shopping. Next you’ll need some software to
make that hardware useful, so it’s on to Chapter 3, Software for
Restoration.

PPI, DPI, Resolution: What’s the Diff? “Dpi” has become a much misused and overused term. Image processing programs adopted this traditional printing term in order to
make things less confusing for the graphic arts business. It has not quite worked out that
way! Originally “dpi” meant halftone dots per inch when talking press reproduction with
screened plates, like those used for magazines and newspapers.
Today, “dpi” is also used to mean ink droplets per inch (for inkjet printers) or pixels
per inch (for image files and full-color devices like displays, photographic output devices,
and dye sublimation printers). In other words, it doesn’t refer to a single standard unit of
measure. This is a seriously confusing situation for lots of people.

Printers

49

Fig. 2-12 The print on
the left is made up of
full-color pixels; it’s a
scan from a dyesublimation print. The
print on the right is made
up of ink droplets. Its
resolution and tonality
are similar to that of the
dye sublimation print,
but it uses many ink
droplets to make a single
pixel. Don’t get pixels,
dots, and ink droplets
confused; they’re all
different!

To begin with, image files don’t come in dots, they come in pixels. Pixels and halftone
dots aren’t the same thing; most software requires somewhat more than one pixel to
generate one sharp halftone dot. The correct measure of digital image resolution is pixels
per inch, no matter what your software says. That’s why I use “ppi” instead of “dpi” when
I’m actually talking about image pixels, and it’s a habit you might want to try to get into
yourself.
Your inkjet printer is not rated in ppi. In fact it isn’t even rated in “dots per inch.” An
inkjet printer’s “dpi” really means “ink droplets per inch.” A droplet isn’t a pixel or a halftone “dot.” It’s just a blob of ink. The key difference is that a single pixel or halftone dot
can convey the range of tones from black to white. Inkjet printers can make droplets in at
most a few different sizes. The printer uses a fine spray of droplets of each color to build
up continuous tone, with more droplets to produce higher densities (Figure 2-12). It takes
several ink droplets of each color to make up a full-color, full-tone pixel. So the actual
resolution of the printer when you’re printing out continuous-tone color is considerably
less than the printer’s official dpi. That’s why you need a printer with a much higher dpi
than your file’s ppi in order to get good tonal reproduction.
How many is “several drops?” It depends on the printer’s dpi (droplets per inch) in
combination with how it creates the spray pattern of droplets that make continuous tones.
The program that does that (called a dither algorithm) is built into the printer and the
driver. Dithers are complicated. There’s no easy way to calculate the real resolution (in
pixels per inch) that a printer can portray. You find that out by printing a series of realworld images with increasing ppi’s and seeing when the prints stop getting sharper. The
Epson 2200 can make use of at least 400 to 600 ppi of image detail. You don’t have to
use that much to get a decent-looking print—300 ppi is enough to look nice and sharp.
But if you have the same image in both 300 and 600 ppi and print them out and put them
next to each other, the 600-ppi one will look a bit sharper.

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C H A PTE R 3

Software for Restoration
Profile Mechanic Monitor
Photoshop CS2
Picture Window Pro v4
DIGITAL ROC Pro
DIGITAL GEM Pro
DIGITAL GEM Airbrush Pro
Color Mechanic
Image Doctor
Focus Magic
Asiva Selection
Mask Pro
CurveMeister2
PixelGenius PhotoKit
PixelGenius PhotoKit Sharpener
Neat Image Pro+
Color Management
Color management software is at the top of my software list, because
without good color management, everything else becomes much harder.
You need to manage your system’s color if you want to get quality
results.
Why should color management matter? Walk into any consumer
electronics store and look at the wall of TVs they have for sale. They’re
all tuned to the same program, but no two of them look alike. Identical
inputs, different outputs—that’s the problem. No equipment displays or

51

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

reproduces color perfectly, and that’s true of your computer monitor and
printer.
Minimize monitor errors, and you’ll be a lot closer to seeing your
photograph’s true tones and colors. Reduce printer errors, and you’ll get
better-looking prints than you ever did before, and you’ll get them more
easily. Your operating system must support color management for you
to get good control over your photographs. All recent flavors of Mac OS
Classic and OS X work. If you’re running Windows, upgrade to Windows
2000 or XP.
Color management uses data fi les called profiles to fi x color rendering
problems. Profi les don’t alter your image fi le. The profi le is a little translator that adjusts the electronic data before it goes to your monitor or
printer to cancel the errors that the monitor or printer introduces. It
works behind the scenes to make sure that “what you see” is closer to
“what you get.”
Profi ling your printer is most important for quality results, and I
cover that in Chapter 11, Printing Tips. If you don’t spend any other
money to get into digital restoration, do spend the money for a custom
printer profi le. It’s really worth it.
You don’t really need a calibrated monitor to do good digital printing,
but working without one slows the work. You’ll have to do more mental
translation from what you see into what you think you’ll get, and you’ll
waste more time and money on tests.
Don’t worry about scanner profi ling. For normal digital photographic
work, you’d also want a good profi le for your scanner to ensure that
your scans have maximum fidelity. In restoration work this is not even
desirable. As I explain in Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the Computer, it’s unlikely you’ll want to make a scan that faithfully reproduces
the damaged photograph in its deteriorated state.
Profile Mechanic Monitor (http://www.dl-c.com)
Your monitor probably has controls to correct the overall color temperature, brightness, and contrast. Tools like Adobe Gamma work with that
and only ensure that on average your monitor is operating properly;
there will still be errors in how colors and tones are displayed. A monitor
profi le corrects all of those individual color errors.
For example, your monitor may reproduce a middle gray just fine but
portray fi re-engine red as being a little too bright and a little too yellow.
A custom profi le won’t alter the grays, but it will make the red a little
darker and a little bluer to compensate, just enough to balance out the
distortion of the monitor.
To profi le your monitor, you need special hardware and software that
measures and analyzes the colors being displayed. Profi le Mechanic
Monitor ($180) from Digital Light & Color is inexpensive as monitorprofi ling packages go (Figure 3-1). To use it, your video board must

Color Management

53

Fig. 3-1 Unlike your
printer, it’s not absolutely
necessary that your
monitor be calibrated to
produce the best
restorations. However,
calibrating your monitor
using a package like
Profile Mechanic Monitor
will make sure that what
you see on the screen
looks a lot more like
what you’ll get in the
print. That lets you work
faster and easier, with
fewer wasted test prints.

support hardware color look-up tables (CLUTs). Just about all modern
video chip sets do.
Profi le Mechanic Monitor includes a USB “hockey-puck” photosensor
that directly measures the light and color produced by your screen.
You position the sensor over a box displayed on the screen, and the
software flashes a series of differently colored squares. In the initial
trial-and-error manual stage, you must adjust the controls on your
monitor to make the brightness and contrast match a displayed ideal
brightness curve. After that, profi le creation is an entirely automatic
process.
A monitor can be set up in any of several different standard ways.
You have a choice of color temperatures of 5000 kelvins (D50), 6500
kelvins (D65), or 7500 kelvins (D75) and of gammas of 1.8 or 2.2.
(Gamma is a measure of how light the middle gray tones look.) There’s
no one right configuration. Many standardize on D65 and gamma 2.2
as a good compromise between adequate monitor brightness and correct
color rendition. D50 and gamma 1.8 is often recommended for work that
is going to a press.

54

CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

I like D50 and gamma 2.2. D50 is bright enough for me, and it’s a
close match to standard daylight viewing conditions. It is also better than
D65 for work that will be viewed under incandescent lights. My experience is that gamma 2.2 produces a closer brightness match to the prints
that come off modern inkjet printers than gamma 1.8.
By the way, this is true whether you’re running a Mac or PC. The
old rule that the Mac gamma should be set to 1.8 is based on ancient
and obsolete technology. It’s got no more bearing on current equipment
than 72 dpi does on actual monitor resolution.
You don’t have to agree with my preferences. Experiment! I made
profi les for all six combinations of color temperature and gamma and
looked at them to decide which ones worked best for me.
Monitors age and drift in brightness and color with time. It’s a good
idea make a new profi le every couple of months to ensure that your
display is still producing the quality it ought to.
Image Processing Software
Photoshop CS2
In this book I use the latest version of Photoshop, CS2, but older versions
are quite serviceable. Some of my techniques work on versions as far
back as Photoshop 5.5. If you’re running an older version of Windows
or Mac OS 9 Classic, as I am on one of my computers, the latest version
of Photoshop you’ll be able to run is Photoshop 7. Many of Photoshop 7’s most valuable tools and fi lters are 16-bit capable, as is the allimportant History Brush tool, but it only supports layers and adjustment
layers in 8-bit mode.
If you think Photoshop is your cup of tea and you can’t afford (or
can’t run) the latest version, search around and you may fi nd legitimate
individual copies of Photoshop 7 for sale for under $100. If you buy a
used copy, make sure that the seller transfers the serial number to you;
Adobe has an established procedure for doing that. Also look for copies
that are “upgradable,” meaning that the original owner hasn’t already
upgraded to a later version of Photoshop. That gets you into the Photoshop food chain, where upgrades are much, much cheaper than full
packages.
One big warning: Beware of vendors that claim to sell you “OEM”
versions of Photoshop and websites that say you can download it from
them. Photoshop has never been legally distributed that way. A vendor
who seems to have unlimited copies of Photoshop at supercheap prices
is selling counterfeit or pirated goods. Don’t get taken in, and please
don’t support the crooks!
If you’re a registered student, Adobe often has educational packages
that save you considerable money over the list price. Look into this before
paying regular prices for Photoshop.

Image Processing Software

55

Fig. 3-2 Photoshop CS2
has a new cursor, and it’s
worth the price of the
upgrade all by itself. The
photograph on the left
shows a circular brush
cursor in Photoshop CS.
It pretty much disappears
against middle tones. The
new CS2 cursor (right)
never disappears, and
you can add a crosshair
to the middle for
precision work.

Why do I think CS2 is worth the upgrade? For a start, you’ll be able
to use more memory (as much as 3.5 GB of RAM), but you’ll need to be
running on a 64-bit CPU with a 64-bit OS, like Windows Server or Mac
OS X.
The tool cursor is changed for the better! In the past, it faded into
invisibility over midtones. The new cursor is always clearly visible,
regardless of the background (Figure 3-2). A new preference adds central
crosshairs to a brush tip cursor. Now I can see the area a tool is affecting
and precisely maneuver it at the same time, which is really useful when
I’m trying to do precision cloning. I can assign the mouse scroll wheel
to zoom in or out of the image. I do a lot of bit-twiddling and fi ne work
when doing restorations; zooming in and out without touching the keyboard is just great.
These “minor” changes save me lots of time and eyestrain. I swear
I’d upgrade to CS2 just for these.
The new Spot Healing Brush is a big improvement over the old
Healing Brush. I didn’t fi nd myself using the original Healing Brush very
much, because I thought there were better ways to fi x problems. The
new Spot Healing Brush is easier to use and works a lot better.
Smart Sharpen goes way beyond Unsharp Masking. There’s a new
blur algorithm I prefer; Lens Blur doesn’t produce as much bright
haloing around edges or grain/noise enhancement as Gaussian Blur
does. Shadow and Highlight controls let you defi ne how much sharpening gets applied to light and dark tones. For example, you can suppress

56

CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

shadow sharpening in fi lm scans and underexposed digital photos that
suffer from a lot of shadow noise.
The Reduce Noise fi lter also has a very nice range of controls; I can
choose how much noise reduction to apply to each channel and select
to preserve and even enhance certain levels of detail while reducing
overall noise (Figure 3-3).
One unpleasant change: The progress bar now only pops up (in midscreen) if an operation is taking longer than 8 seconds, a very long time
to wait. Worse, the behavior is unpredictable: Sometimes it pops up after
2 seconds; other times it doesn’t show after a dozen seconds or more.
It’s maddening. A Windows registry patch named ForceProgress_ON.
reg, in the Goodies\Optional Plug-Ins\Photoshop Only\Optional Extensions folder of the CD, will force the bar to appear any time an operation
is going to take more than a fraction of a second. This is worse than the
old, unobtrusive progress bar, but it’s better than the erratic default
behavior. I don’t know what Mac OS users can do.

Picture Window Pro v4 (http://www.dl-c.com)
Picture Window Pro (Figure 3-4) is an impressive and, at $90, inexpensive digital darkroom program. Published by Digital Light & Color, this
program is fully 16-bit native, offers multiple undos, supports color
management and device calibration better than Photoshop, has color
correction and advanced sharpening tools that outdo Photoshop’s, and
takes up only 5 MB of your hard drive. A bonus: Picture Window has
no annoying activation schemes, like Photoshop. (Note: The nonpro
version only supports 8-bit images and lacks some of the best tools of
Picture Window Pro.)
If you don’t already own Photoshop, Picture Window Pro will give
you a lot more bang per buck. You can download a free trial that is fully
functional for 30 days. Picture Window Pro only runs under Windows.
I run the program under Virtual PC on a Mac, so (non-Intel) Mac lovers
aren’t entirely out of luck, but it will run much slower. Picture Window
Pro understands 8- and 16-bit TIFF, so Picture Window Pro and Photoshop share a common fi le format, but Picture Window Pro will not read
nor write PSD fi les. If you like using Photoshop’s special PSD-related
features, you won’t be able to easily go back and forth between the two
programs.
Picture Window Pro is a deceptively simple-looking program. I’ve
known people to dismiss it simply because it’s not Photoshop and doesn’t
include some of the tools they expect to fi nd. What such cursory examination fails to reveal is that Picture Window Pro comes well equipped
with its own unique tools and methodologies.
Picture Window Pro’s interface is not Photoshop’s. Personally, I don’t
consider that a bad thing, as I’ve never been a big fan of the Photoshop

Image Processing Software

Fig. 3-3 The new Reduce Noise filter in Photoshop CS2 is a good tool for cleaning up noisy scans.
Slider adjustments control strength, sharpness, detail preservation, and color noise elimination. The
latter comes in especially handy when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re cleaning up film scans, as I did here. The filtered bottom
photograph is a lot better than the raw photograph at the top.

57

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-4 Picture Window, from Digital Light & Color, works like a real digital darkroom. Each time you change a photograph, you
create a new print. This screenshot shows me using the Brightness Curve Transformation to produce four different versions of the
original photograph in the upper left background. I can save as many of these “prints” as I choose. I can also work on each print
with other tools, and so follow parallel, independent paths of development for the same original photograph.

interface. To use Picture Window Pro effectively, you’ll need to unlearn
some Adobe ideas and acquire new ones.
Each time you perform an operation in Picture Window Pro, you
create a new copy of the photo in a new window (hence, the program’s
name). I can’t overstate how different this is from Photoshop, where
operations change the original image. It’s more like darkroom printing,
where printing a photo differently doesn’t erase previous prints, except
that these are live fi les. You can go back and work with each one, taking
it down its own artistic path.
For example, when the brightness curve control panel appears, so
does a copy of the photo in a new preview window. As you adjust the

Image Processing Software

curves, changes are reflected in the preview window. Press the Apply
button, and a third window opens up containing the transformed image.
Your original image remains unaltered in its own window, and the
preview window and the control panel remain open; you can try other
curve settings and every time you press Apply, a new window with a
new modified image appears.
These image windows all exist independently of each other, and you
can modify any of them using other transformations. PW’s browser
provides a tree diagram showing the genealogy of all of your image
windows, so you can track and manage your workflow.
You can pull off some interesting tricks, once you wrap your head
around this. For instance, each image in Picture Window Pro is similar
to a snapshot in Photoshop, except it has its own independent existence.
Using the clone tool between different image windows is a credible
alternative to Photoshop’s History Brush. Cloning isn’t quite as convenient nor does it have as many options, but you can use it between any
two images in PW, without worrying about the chronology of history
states. You can “brush” backward or forward in time, even sideways
between parallel branches of development.
Picture Window Pro includes some wonderful tools. The color correction controls emulate CC, Wratten, and color temperature correction
photographic fi lters. These feel familiar to traditional photographic printers. Picture Window Pro’s color correction transformation (also available
as a separate Photoshop plug-in called Color Mechanic, described later
in this chapter) is extraordinarily powerful and intuitive and unlike any
other color correction tool you’ve ever used. If you already own Photoshop and have no desire to add Picture Window Pro to your ensemble,
purchase that plug-in; you won’t regret it.
Picture Window Pro offers resampling with sharpening using
advanced sharpening options that do a better job of enhancing fi ne
detail than Photoshop. For the ultimate in preservation of detail, there’s
PW’s advanced sharpen transformation. It’s actually a three-part affair:
a noise reduction stage, a speck removal stage, and fi nally a sharpen
stage. The fi rst two stages are most useful by themselves for cleaning up
photographs, whether or not you need to enhance their sharpness.
I use Picture Window Pro’s powerful mask selection methods even
when working primarily in Photoshop (masks are just grayscale images,
so you can create them with one program and use them with another).
You can defi ne masks with hue, saturation, and value ranges, a la Asiva
Select (described later in this chapter), with a Mask Brightness Curve
(Figure 3-5), and with mask-painting brushes that can fi nd edges and
select pixels of similar color (see Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 234).
While PW is very speedy at opening and saving fi les (even faster than
Photoshop), most of its comparable transformations run slower. Assume
operations like Curves and sharpen or blur fi lters will take two to three
times as long in PW as in Photoshop.

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-5 Picture Window has some very powerful mask-making tools. The Mask Brightness Curve, for example, is much more
fl exible and useful than Photoshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crude Color Range tool. Here I used the Curve to create a mask (lower right) that selected
the midtones of the photograph in the upper left and smoothly faded out toward the whites and blacks. You can create very
complex masks by using several of the masking tools in combination.

Plug-Ins
Plug-ins let me work much more efficiently, saving me much time and
effort. Many plug-ins produce higher quality results than I could ever
achieve by hand, no matter how much time I might spend. In the
remainder of this chapter I introduce you to plug-ins that aid my restoration work. These are by no means tutorials nor even complete descrip-

Plug-Ins

tions of their capabilities. Throughout the book I use these plug-ins in
my examples of how to fi x various kinds of problems. That will give you
some sense of their worth and how to apply them. All of them have trial
downloads, so you can check them out thoroughly.
You don’t necessarily need Photoshop to run plug-ins; most plug-ins
will run in Adobe Photoshop Elements, Adobe PhotoDeluxe, and Corel
Paint Shop Pro, but each plug-in maker decides which programs their
plug-ins will be compatible with and what OS they’ll run under. A few,
for example, only work under Windows (noted below), and several may
require a more recent version of Windows or Mac OS than you’re
running. Check the plug-in publisher’s website to fi nd out which environments their plug-in will run in.
Plug-ins come with a cost, and I don’t just mean their purchase price.
Plug-ins are frequently memory hogs, because they’re performing very
complicated calculations. See my remarks on RAM usage in Chapter 2,
page 34. As a rule plug-ins need to use a piece of the RAM that is available to Photoshop. As long as you’ve got at least twice as much RAM
assigned to Photoshop as the size of the fi le you’re opening, bare-bones
Photoshop will usually run. It will run slowly, because as soon as you
start doing anything it will start writing scratch fi les to the disk, but it
will perform.
Not so for plug-ins. They need to work in real RAM, and sometimes
their RAM demands are large. For example, DIGITAL ROC and DIGITAL
GEM need additional RAM that’s equal to about two and a half times
the size of the image fi le you’re working on. DIGITAL GEM Airbrush
needs almost seven times the fi le size!
Some plug-ins perform extraordinarily elaborate computations and
take a long time to run even on a very fast machine. It can truly try
one’s patience waiting for some of them to fi nish executing. Still, what
I get in return for that time can be incredibly valuable. So, as the seconds
(and sometimes minutes) tick away, I try to remind myself that if I were
doing this manually, it would take me 10 times as long, and it wouldn’t
look half as good.
Remember that you can use plug-ins with masks, history brushes,
and layers that you can blend into the original image in different ways.
Don’t just take what a plug-in hands you; shape it to your needs.
DIGITAL ROC Pro and GEM Pro (http://www.asf.com)
DIGITAL ROC and DIGITAL GEM are built into some scanners as part
of the DIGITAL ICE3 package. Applied Science Fiction, now known as
the Eastman Kodak Austin Development Center, has turned them into
plug-ins.
I strongly recommend these two plug-ins even if you have a scanner
that’s equipped with ICE3. The plug-ins work differently from the scanner
software and have advantages that the scanner software doesn’t.

61

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-6 The DIGITAL
ROC plug-in for
Photoshop does things
that the version built into
DIGITAL ICE 3 cannot. The
plug-in version lets you
adjust color balance,
brightness, and contrast
for optimal results. This
screenshot shows
DIGITAL ROC correcting a
badly faded slide from
the late 1970s.

Although the scanner plug-ins get to work on the raw scanner data
before it gets to your computer and consequently often do the most
effective job of repairing flaws, they aren’t very flexible. They have fewer
adjustments and controls than do the plug-in versions. Furthermore you
can’t use masking techniques or layers to selectively control where and
how the scanner software works its magic. Controlled application of
DIGITAL ROC and GEM is a very powerful tool.
These plug-ins come in regular and professional versions. Buy the
professional versions, even though they cost twice as much ($100 apiece)
because they work on 16-bit as well as 8-bit images, but more importantly they include a number of adjustment controls that aren’t available
on the regular versions. I fi nd these controls absolutely essential to
getting really good results.
ROC stands for restoration of color. DIGITAL ROC Pro (Figure 3-6)
analyzes the color gamut of the original fi le to adjust, expand, and normalize each color channel. Think of it as kind of an automatic graphic
equalizer for color instead of sound. The plug-in is not as effective as the
version incorporated into scanners, because it doesn’t have access to the
raw scan data, but it’s the next best thing.
Just about any color rendition problem can be fi xed using Photoshop’s standard tools, but it can take a lot of work and expertise to do

Plug-Ins

Fig. 3-7 By itself, DIGITAL ROC produces great color, but the results are often too contrasty, with
extreme highlight and shadow detail clipped. A great way to control this plug-in’s contrast is to make
two duplicate layers of the original photograph and apply DIGITAL ROC to both of the duplicates.
Set the fi rst duplicate layer to Color blend and the second to Luminosity blend. Adjust the opacity
of the Luminosity-blended layer down from 100% to reduce the contrast of the photograph to the
desired level. If you keep this as a layered file instead of flattening it, you can go back at any later
time and alter the opacity settings to change the way the photograph looks.

so. DIGITAL ROC will do 50% to 75% of the job all by itself in one pass.
It’s that good. Don’t confuse what DIGITAL ROC does with a simple
Auto Levels or Auto Color adjustment in Photoshop. DIGITAL ROC really
does restore color, coming up with credible tones and hues from extremely
faded, nearly monochrome originals. It probably doesn’t do anything
that I can’t do manually in Photoshop, but it does it automatically and
swiftly.
Sometimes DIGITAL ROC can be too contrasty and saturated, with
a tendency to blow out the highlights. Normally I set the brightness level
much lower than the default of 25; sometimes I take it all the way down
to 0. I also usually set the black clip at 0%. Setting the white clip to 0%
sometimes produces obviously distorted results, but typing a value
between 0.1% and 1% works well.
I often apply DIGITAL ROC to duplicate layers of the photograph and
blend them into the base layer with luminosity and color blends (see
Chapter 6, Restoring Color, page 193). That lets me modulate the strength
of the color and contrast changes separately (Figure 3-7). See Chapter
9, page 336, for a complete restoration of this photo.
DIGITAL GEM (Figure 3-8) reduces grain and noise without significantly affecting fi ne detail. GEM is a special kind of noise fi lter that is
designed for fi lm grain, but I have found it extremely useful for dealing
with any kind of fi ne random noise. I use it primarily to reduce the grain

63

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-8 The DIGITAL
GEM plug-in for
Photoshop does things
that the version built into
DIGITAL ICE 3 doesn’t. The
plug-in lets you choose
whether to suppress
coarse or fi ne noise,
emphasize highlight or
shadow noise
suppression, and sharpen
up the photograph after
noise reduction. I used
DIGITAL GEM with the
settings shown here to
improve the photograph
in Figure 3-9.

in my restorations, especially with very low-contrast originals that will
have their contrast increased during restoration (Figure 3-9). Whenever
I have a vexing noise problem, whether it is due to paper surface texture,
cracking or grazing, or dirt on the original, I experiment with GEM to
see if it will improve the situation more than Photoshop’s standard
fi lters.
GEM’s controls are rather complex and take some practice to master.
DIGITAL GEM has two different fi lter types, a coarse mode and a finegrain mode, with different sets of controls. In the coarse mode, noise
control sliders control how much the fi lter reduces grain noise in the
highlights and shadows. Moving a slider toward maximum tends to
decrease image detail for those tones, while moving it toward minimum
preserves fi ne detail but removes less of the noise.
In the fi ne-grain, mode the noise controls change to a suppression
slider and a detail sensitivity slider. The suppression slider controls the
strength of the operation; as you push the slider toward maximum, it
more aggressively fi lters out grain and noise. The detail sensitivity slider
determines how much image detail the fi lter preserves versus how much
grain it suppresses. Increasing the value in this slider preserves more
fi ne detail but may leave more grain behind.

Plug-Ins

65

Fig. 3-9 Low-contrast
and faded originals may
become very grainy when
theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re restored because
the increased contrast
emphasizes the grain
along with everything
else. The restoration of
the top photograph
(enlarged in the middle
photo) demonstrates this
problem. The color and
tone are fi ne, but the
grain dominates the
photograph. Applying
DIGITAL GEM with the
settings shown in Figure
3-8 produced a much
nicer photograph, seen at
the bottom.

Because grain suppression is almost always somewhat destructive of
fi ne detail no matter how cleverly done, I often use this with the History
Brush, so that I can apply grain reduction exactly where I want at a
controllable strength.
When I need to use DIGITAL ROC, I usually apply it before doing
anything else, to bring the photograph into some semblance of correct

66

CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-10 DIGITAL GEM
Airbrush, as its name and
title bar suggest, is
primarily a retouching
tool that produces
smoother and more
attractive skin tones.
Nonetheless, it can be a
very effective tool for
reducing fi ne, overall
damage, like the
pervasive small scratches
that obscure this
photograph.

tonality and color. There are times, though, when I fi nd it better to apply
DIGITAL GEM fi rst to reduce the noise in the image. DIGITAL ROC can
be confused by very high noise levels; GEM lightly applied can clean up
scans so that DIGITAL ROC does a better job.
DIGITAL GEM Airbrush Pro (http://www.asf.com)
DIGITAL GEM Airbrush Pro (Figure 3-10) is a more specialized kind
of grain and noise reduction tool than DIGITAL GEM. As its name
suggests, it’s meant as more of a retouching tool, to soften blemishes,
creases, and lines in people’s hands and faces. If your restoration objectives include “prettifying” the subject, this plug-in makes that work go
much faster.
I have found, however, that GEM Airbrush has uses beyond the mere
cosmetic. Many old-time portraits had rather heavy-handed retouching
done to them. Faces will show obvious cross-hatching or stippling marks
that to the modern eye look more like disfigurement than enhancement.
GEM Airbrush sees them as not much different from facial wrinkles,
and it can help eliminate them. GEM Airbrush can also suppress fi ne
scratches and scuff marks (Figure 3-11).

Plug-Ins

67

Fig. 3-11 The
photograph on the left is
covered with fi ne
scratches. Applying
DIGITAL GEM Airbrush,
with the settings shown
in Figure 3-10, eliminated
most of the scratches
(right photograph).
Normally, you should
apply this filter with a
History Brush so that you
can avoid altering areas
with important fi ne detail
that might be damaged
by the filter.

This plug-in tends to destroy moderate and fi ne detail, so you want
to apply it carefully. There are three detail-controlling sliders for fi ne,
medium, and coarse detail. Increasing the adjustment from 0 to 100
increases the amount of that kind of detail that is retained in the fi ltered
photograph.
GEM Airbrush is a tricky tool to learn to use well; its behavior isn’t
exactly intuitive. Still, I have found that its unique noise-fi ltering abilities make it worth one’s while to spend the time to understand it. I think
it’s best used with masks or the History Brush, so that its effect can be
applied only where desired.
Color Mechanic (http://www.colormechanic.com)
Color Mechanic (Figure 3-12), from Digital Light & Color is derived from
the incredibly useful Color Correction Transformation in Picture
Window. That’s good news for Mac users, since Color Mechanic plays
happily with Mac versions of programs like Photoshop.
Color Mechanic comes in a regular ($30) and a pro ($50) version;
the pro version supports 16-bit fi les and has some additional controls I
fi nd valuable. Digital Light & Color also allows one to upgrade from the
regular to professional version for an additional $30, so you won’t lose
much money if you decide to get the regular version and later decide
you need the professional.
Color Mechanic takes advantage of the way we naturally think about
color correction. We can look at a photo and immediately identify the
colors and tones that are off, but Photoshop lacks an intuitive way to
correct them. We can’t simply tell Photoshop, “That skin tone is too pink

68

CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-12 Color Mechanic
is a most remarkable and
unique Photoshop plug-in
for manipulating colors in
a photograph. Clicking
the eyedropper on the
“before” photograph
(left) sets control points
in the color-space
hexagon at the lower
left. Dragging those
points to new locations
changes the original
colors to new ones.
Nearby colors warp
smoothly, so there are no
abrupt and unnaturallooking color changes.
The resulting photograph
and color-space hexagon
are shown on the right.
Figure 3-13 shows an
expanded view of the
color space for this
adjustment.

and that gray too blue; fi x it.” Color Mechanic comes close to doing just
that with a remarkably simple way to correct color. It presents you with
a view of your fi le and a color-space hexagon. Click on a point in the
image, and the corresponding color is selected within the color hexagon.
You can drag that color into any other place in the color space. The color
space warps smoothly around that change, as if it were a rubber sheet
change, so related colors adjust to fit; greatly different colors aren’t
affected at all (Figure 3-13). Changes are immediately reflected in the
“after” image and the color hexagon. There are also sliders to control the
brightness and (in the pro version) the strength of the color changes.
You can do this to as many color points as you like, custom-tuning
the color palette to fit the photo. You can lock down colors so that they
don’t change by adding a correction point and not dragging it to a new
location. That pins the color at its original value, no matter what other
warps you make to the color space.
Restoring the color in a badly faded photograph is often a process of
approximations. Some fi ne adjustment is usually needed to get the colors
to look exactly right. Color Mechanic’s great for that, especially for correcting slight color casts in neutrals and skin tones without introducing
unwanted side effects. That can be extremely difficult with Photoshop’s
standard tools, even with plug-ins like DIGITAL ROC. See Chapter 6,
Restoring Color, page 227, for more about using this wonderful plug-in.

Plug-Ins

Fig. 3-13 These are enlarged views of the color-space adjustments I made in Figure 3-12. The numbered points demonstrate the different kinds of changes that Color Mechanic can make. I dragged
Point 1 toward the neutral center point to desaturate the background of the photograph. The Preview
color space shows that white has “bled” from the head of the arrow back to the control point. Point
2 was dragged away from the center and from the green hues. That increased the saturation in the
dress and shifted the hue slightly to the blue. I used Point 3 as a lock-down point; since I didn’t draw
an arrow from it, the input and preview colors will be the same. It preserves those yellow-green hues
in the color space unchanged.

Image Doctor (http//www.alienskin.com)
Image Doctor ($130) from Alien Skin Software is a plug-in that I recommend with qualifiers. Image Doctor contains four tools; the ones that
will most interest restorers are Smart Fill (Figure 3-14) and Spot Lifter
(Figure 3-15).
Smart Fill is an extremely powerful image repair utility. Smart Fill
serves a function similar to that of Photoshop CS2’s Patch Tool, but it is
more sophisticated (and more difficult to use). It can fi ll in large gaps
in a photograph with surrounding tones and complex textures so adroitly
that it’s difficult to tell that any repair work has been done (Figure
3-16).
Image Doctor is brilliant when applied to simple selections but not
good on complex ones. It’s sometimes easy to create a selection mask
that isolates the missing parts of a photograph or a network of cracks
(see Chapter 7, Making Masks), so that you can work on restoring those
without messing up the remaining photograph. You’d think Image
Doctor would be the perfect tool for fi lling in networks of cracks or
crazing in a photograph and for quickly restoring missing chunks of
image. The problem is that the amount of computation that Image Doctor
has to do increases with the complexity and size of the selection (obviously very high for networks of cracks). Image Doctor creates a sampling
box for re-creating the missing detail based on the expanse of the

69

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-14 Image Doctor
is an effi cient plug-in for
doing the fi rst level of
repair on damaged
originals. Its Smart Fill
function repaired the
selected area in the top
photograph, producing
the bottom photo (this
is a close-up of the
photograph in Figure 13). Smart Fill canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
perfectly interpolate
detail that isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t there,
but it does a good
enough job of
reestablishing tones and
textures to substantially
reduce the amount of
manual labor needed to
completely fi x the
missing pieces.

Plug-Ins

Fig. 3-15 Image Doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Spot Lifter works rapidly on complex selections (upper photo), but it
doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t create brand-new textures like Smart Fill does. It did a very good job of filling in the cracks
in this portion of Figure 1-8, once I had created a selection for them (see Chapter 7).

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-16 Smart Fill can
repair multiple areas in
one pass, as it did in the
photograph on the right,
but you’ll need a very
fast computer and
patience. It’s still a lot
faster, however, than
doing the repair work by
hand!

selected areas; for damage scattered across an entire photograph, Image
Doctor attempts to analyze the entire photograph for all of the regions
that need repair. The result is exponentially increasing processing time.
I can readily come up with selections that take Image Doctor the better
part of an hour to process. Image Doctor will tax the fastest CPU you
can throw at it.
Image Doctor is so useful, though, that it’s worth figuring out some
work-arounds. The following work principles tame Image Doctor enough
to make it a useful tool:
• Divide the photograph into small regions, and work on them
separately. Image Doctor will take much less time to fi ll in many
voids that fall within a region that’s only 5% of the total area of
the photograph than it will to fi ll in a handful of voids scattered
across the entire image.
• The more complex the shape of the selected regions to be filled
in, the longer it seems to take Image Doctor to do its job. Smooth
masks to keep the edges and contours of the selections as simple
and uncomplicated as possible.
Spot Lifter is Smart Fill’s simpler sibling. It’s faster and easier to use, but
it doesn’t do anywhere near as clever a job of replicating surroundings,
because it doesn’t attempt to duplicate textures. It doesn’t work well

Plug-Ins

when the void it’s fi lling is surrounded by areas with lots of detail. Spot
Lifter will work on much larger regions and more complex selections
without taking insanely long amounts of time. Spot Lifter usually doesn’t
do an invisible repair job, but it often suppresses damage to the point
that it is no longer a distraction in the printed photograph.
Image Doctor also includes a highly effective JPEG Repair tool. You
won’t need this when working on scans you’ve done yourself, but on
occasion you may have to do restoration from a file someone sends you
because they don’t have the original any longer. It’s possible to do decent
restorations from such fi les, and in those circumstances you’ll fi nd JPEG
Repair valuable for cleaning up compression artifacts. It does a much
better job than Remove JPEG Artifact in Photoshop’s Reduce Noise
fi lter.
Focus Magic (htpp://www.focusmagic.com)
Focus Magic ($45) is a remarkable piece of software. It’s an honest-toGod real sharpening algorithm that works as a stand-alone program or
a Photoshop plug-in. I’ll spare you the math about how it works. What’s
important is that this is not a mere edge-enhancement routine like most
so-called sharpening fi lters; this one actually undoes the blur.
Focus Magic can remove motion blur as well as out-of-focus blur
(Figure 3-17). Sometimes its improvements are astonishing. It cannot
work true miracles; I’d estimate that usually it’s limited to about a factor
of two gain in real fi ne detail and sharpness; that’s often enough to take
a lousy photo and turn it into an acceptable one or make a borderline
photograph really sharp.
The cleaner and more noise/grain-free a photograph is, the better
Focus Magic will work; it indiscriminately sharpens noise and grain just
as much as image detail. This can produce objectionable artifacts, especially in areas that demand smooth tonality, like faces. Focus Magic has
settings that will minimize these artifacts at the expense of some efficacy. Its default source setting is Digital Camera, which requires a very
noise-free original. Unless your photograph has almost no grain, dirt,
and noise, the Grainy Image source setting will work a lot better. That
may give sharpened photographs a slightly plastic look, with sharpened
edges but smoothed-out continuous tones.
I use Focus Magic to help deal with textured photographs, especially
those printed on that annoying “honeycomb” paper surface that used to
be so popular and creates so much trouble when I scan it. It’s not hard
to get rid of that texture with one or another of the noise or blur fi lters
in Photoshop, but that almost always degrades the fi ne detail in the
photograph. An adroit use of a fi lter to remove the paper texture followed by an application of Focus Magic often eliminates the paper
texture with little or no loss of any actual image detail (Chapter 8,
page 307).

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-17 The plug-in
version of Focus Magic
can remove motion blur
(top photo) and out-offocus blur (bottom
photo). It will actually
retrieve detail that is
invisible in the original
photograph. Here, I used
it to correct both camera
shake and bad focus that
afflicted this snapshot.
Focus Magic can also be
used to pull maximum
detail out of alreadysharp photographs.

Given that many of the photos we get to restore arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really sharp,
this tool is great to have. With a low-noise photo, the results can border
on the unbelievable (Figure 3-18). I apply Focus Magic in some fashion
or another to many photographs I restore. Even when working with
high-quality scans from my own original photographs, I often apply
Focus Magic with a one-pixel radius setting to subtly enhance fi ne detail
and kick up the edge sharpness a bit.

Plug-Ins

75

Fig. 3-18 On the left, the
snapshot before Focus
Magic. On the right, the
improvements Focus
Magic wrought. The
plug-in turned an
unusable photograph
into an acceptable one.
With a better original,
Focus Magic can make a
marginal photograph
excellent.

As a stand-alone program, Focus Magic has some features that aren’t
available through the plug-in. The despeckle fi lter does a very good job of
descreening scans of halftone photographs. It minimizes the halftone
dots and extracts the maximum amount of real image detail at the same
time (see Chapter 9, Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements, page 320, for other
good ways to descreen halftones). It’s fast, too. The big disadvantage of
the stand-alone program is that it can only open and save JPEG fi les.
The plug-in works on any fi le that can be opened in Photoshop.
Asiva Selection (http://www.asiva.com)
Asiva Selection ($40) is a plug-in that creates masks. Asiva’s novel selection method uses hue, saturation, and intensity (HSI) to isolate different
parts of the photograph (Figure 3-19). Hue corresponds to spectral color:
red, orange, yellow, etc. Saturation (or chroma) is how pure the color
is; for example, primary yellow and red have high saturation, and pastels
have low saturation. Intensity (or value or luminance or brightness) is
how light or dark the tone is, white being maximum and black minimum.
Regardless of what color-space your images are using in Photoshop,
Asiva Selection works with HSI values automatically. Three curve
windows in the Asiva Selection interface control the range of hues,
intensities, and saturation that will be selected.
Learning how to set these curves well takes some practice, even if
you’re familiar with HSI space. Fortunately, a save option lets you preserve settings and reload them later, so you can experiment with different ones. There are also useful preset quick curves. A drop-down menu
loads selection curves for a variety of subjects, including multiethnic
skin tones, water and sky, and primary colors.

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-19 Asiva Selection
creates masks for diffi cult
selections. To make a
background selection for
the photograph in Figure
3-20, I created a Hue
graph (top curve) that
selected for colors in the
yellow-green part of the
spectrum. I adjusted the
Saturation and Intensity
curves to reject the
darkest tones and the
ones that had very low
saturation. That
effectively selected for
the green, sunlit grass.

You can manually create a selection in one of three ways. The first
is to draw in the hue, saturation, and intensity curves directly. Click on
the curve to add a control point to it, which can be dragged up or down
and left or right. You can see the results of your manipulations in the
preview window, either as a grayscale image or as a color overlay on the
original photograph.
The second way is to click on a point in the preview window with
the eyedropper, and the values near that pixel are fed directly into the
selection graphs. You can then modify those curves by hand. You can
choose which of the selection graphs are affected by the eyedropper by
checking or unchecking the sample option above each graph.
The third and most useful way to specify a selection is to drag the
eyedropper tool diagonally across the preview window, which samples
all the pixels in a rectangular box. You can use adjustment sliders to
expand or contract your selection and to fade its edges. The fi nished
mask can be used with any other Photoshop tools. In Figure 3-20, I used
the mask from Figure 3-19 to soften and tone down the background.
Mask Pro (http://www.ononesoftware.com)
Mask Pro is an elaborate and expensive ($200) masking plug-in. It
actually incorporates three related tools. The Mask Pro fi lter extracts
portions of the image, Mask Pro Select defi nes a mask that you may use
with other Photoshop fi lters and tools, and Mask Pro Work Path converts

Plug-Ins

77

Fig. 3-20 The original
photograph is shown at
left. To produce the
photograph on the right,
I applied the selection
created in Figure 3-19
and used the Curves and
Saturation tools to
darken and soften the
background. Even though
I made a very substantial
change to those areas,
there’s no visible
evidence of masking; the
boundary between the
foreground and
background still looks
natural and clean.

a channel or selection into a work path. I primarily use Mask Pro
Select.
Peculiarly, this “professional” plug-in is limited to working on 8-bit
fi les. That’s inconvenient, but masks are portable, so there’s a workaround. If I want to create a mask with Mask Pro for a 16-bit image, I
duplicate that image, convert it to 8 bits, create my mask, save it in a
channel, and then copy that channel back over to the original 16-bit
fi le.
The two tools I use most often for creating masks are the Highlighters
and Eyedroppers (Figure 3-21). Highlighters are good and fast when
there are large areas to mask that have relatively simple geometries. Run
the Keep Highlighter tool around the inside of the perimeter of the area
to be selected. Run the Drop Highlighter tool around the perimeter of
areas to be excluded. You don’t have to be terribly accurate; what Mask
Pro does is analyze the range of tones and colors in your “keep” and
“drop” selections and use those to find the edges of the regions you want
to mask.
The Keep and Drop Eyedroppers sample many points in the photograph to build up a palette of colors and tones that you want to include
(Figure 3-22). The Eyedroppers are vital when you’re trying to isolate
poorly distinguished areas like wisps of hair or similar colors.
Usually, once you’ve made these selections, you’ll activate Mask Pro’s
Magic Brush tool and tell Mask Pro to apply it to the entire image. That
creates the whole mask based on your criteria at once. If you need to be

78

CHAPTER 3

Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-21 The Mask Pro plug-in for Photoshop has extremely sophisticated selection tools. I used
the Keep and Drop Highlighter tools to tell Mask Pro which colors I want to select (the green squiggle)
and which colors I want to mask (the red squiggle) in the fi gure on the left. I activated the Magic
Brush tool (green cursor circle on the right) and painted it over the photograph. Mask Pro automatically generated the mask, shown in tan. Mask Pro does a good job masking along complex and
diffuse edges, such as the boundary between the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair and the background.

Fig. 3-22 Mask Proâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Keep and Drop Eyedropper tools let me refi ne the mask selection. I repeatedly
clicked the Eyedroppers on the photograph to create palettes of colors that I wanted to keep and
drop (shown on the right). Then I applied those choices to the whole image. The mask on the left is
the one that I generated using just the Highlighter tools. The mask on the right is the one I created
with the help of the Eyedropper tools.

Plug-Ins

79

Fig. 3-23 I applied the
mask I generated with
Mask Pro in Figure 3-22
to the photograph on the
left. I used the Curves
tool to substantially
lighten the background
and shift it to a more
attractive shade of blue.
This demonstrates how
well Mask Pro works
when faced with complex
selections and
convoluted boundaries.

more selective and fi ne-tune what you’re doing, you can use the Magic
Brush to paint in the mask manually. You can create very elaborate
masks, altering the “draw” and “keep” selections and palettes on the fly
to use one set of criteria for masking one part of the image and another
set for another part. You can also vary the strength and threshold settings for the mask brush as you work to control how “aggressive” your
masking will be.
Unlike Photoshop’s Extract tool, Mask Pro can analyze the entire
image based on the inclusion data and create a very elaborate mask with
multiple regions that need not be contiguous (Figure 3-23). Mask Pro
isn’t the least bit fazed by complicated mask criteria and geometries. Mask
Pro is much more flexible and versatile in applying its functions and does
a better and more sophisticated job of analyzing what is to be selected
than does Photoshop’s Color Select. Mask Pro is less confused by noisy
originals; its selections are much cleaner and require less touching up.
A unique Mask Pro tool is the Chisel. It shaves off or adds pixels at
the edge of a selection, based on your selection criteria; it doesn’t just
mechanically alter masks like “expand” or “contract.” Chisel always
smoothly follows the perimeter of the selection, so you can’t accidentally
take a big gouge out of your selection.
CurveMeister2 (http://www.curvemeister.com)
I will admit that it took me a while to warm up to CurveMeister2
(Windows only, $80). The reason it’s making my recommended plug-in

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-24 The photograph is too blue. The CurveMeister 2 plug-in has several clever tools for correcting color and lets you choose different color spaces to try them out in. Yet, you don’t need a
sophisticated knowledge of Curves to make corrections with this plug-in—that’s its whole reason
for existence. To fi x this photograph, I used pushpins. I selected the gray-color pushpin (upper left)
and placed it on the back of the cushion in the photograph. CurveMeister 2 instantly created a set
of curves that corrected the overall color of the photograph quite well.

list is that I think many readers will appreciate its value much more
readily.
The Curves tool is the heart and soul of fi ne image control in Photoshop (see Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 134). If you haven’t mastered
curve corrections, you can’t precisely manipulate tone and color rendition in your photographs. Unfortunately, curves are not a natural nor
familiar concept for many photographers, and so they tend to avoid
them. This is a mistake.
CurveMeister2 hands photographers powerful and intelligible ways
to adjust curves. For a start, the CurveMeister2 interface (Figure 3-24)
is much more agreeable than Photoshop’s. You can see and work with
the curves for all the channels simultaneously. The curves have histograms superimposed on them, which makes it a lot easier to match the
range of values in your photograph with points on the curve.
CurveMeister2 lets you work simultaneously in four different color
spaces. You can experiment with curve adjustments in each color space
and compare the results in the plug-in preview window before committing yourself to applying the curve adjustments in one particular space.
There’s much to be said for noodling around; often playing with curves
leads to a better result than going into them with a certainty of exactly
what adjustments you need to make. CurveMeister2 encourages such
useful playfulness.
CurveMeister2 adds a bunch of special controls to the curves windows
that make standard adjustments easier to do, such as increasing contrast
or saturation without altering overall color balance or midrange values.
CurveMeister2 has several ways to assign pixels in the image to points

Plug-Ins

on the curves to set highlight or shadow points or maintain overall
neutrality. The “floating neutral” point in particular is a fast and clear
way to alter brightness levels with minimum alteration of colors.
Pushpins are a clever idea! Pushpins are predefi ned colors that
you can assign to points in your photograph. CurveMeister2 comes
with a set of standard pins, and additional sets can be downloaded from
the author’s website. For instance, CurveMeister2 comes with a collection of pushpins for skin tones from a deep ebony to pale Nordic. You
can add intermediate skin tones of your own to the existing set. Stick
one of these pins into the skin of a person in your photograph, and the
curves will adjust themselves to make the subject’s skin tone and color
match the pin’s. By pinning key colors this way, you can quickly bring
a badly color-distorted photograph into approximate compliance with
reality.
CurveMeister2 is of minimal value to me because it’s not layer-savvy.
When you apply most adjustments and fi lter plug-ins in Photoshop to
the base layer of an image, you see the results as they will look after
they’re fi ltered through any overlying layers. The preview window in
CurveMeister2 completely ignores those layers; all you see is the layer
that you’re working on and the effect that CurveMeister2 will have on
it. This means that the actual effect of applying CurveMeister2 to a multilayer image fi le looks entirely different from what the preview
shows.
I would not normally recommend a tool with this flaw, except that
I do know how much trouble controlling curves gives many otherwiseskilled photographers. The best way to figure out if CurveMeister2 is
for you is to download the trial version of the plug-in and thoroughly
and carefully read the extensive help manual. There are lots of worthwhile gems buried in this application that won’t be obvious to you until
you do.
PixelGenius PhotoKit (http://www.pixelgenius.com)
PixelGenius PhotoKit ($50) is a nice fi nishing tool for photographs. It’s
a collection of special effects such as dodges and burns, contrast and
brightness changes, modest sharpening and noise reduction, and B&W
toning. PhotoKit is actually a bundle of scripts that appears under the
File/Automate menu. There’s little in the way of user interface; selecting
PhotoKit brings up a simple dialog box with drop-down menus from
which you select the effect you want (Figure 3-25).
PhotoKit creates a new layer with a modified image in it that lets you
alter or discard changes you make with no damage to the original, using
any of the usual layer options. You can stack multiple PhotoKit effects
because each time you apply it, it creates a new layer.
The effects have deceptively simple titles. In truth they are visually
sophisticated adjustments, designed with great fi nesse and subtlety. Do

81

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-25 PixelGenius
PhotoKit is a collection of
automated scripts for
Photoshop. The B&W
Toning Set, pictured here,
is a good way to digitally
tone photographs before
printing them out. Shown
here are the drop-down
menus for selecting B&W
Toning (upper right) and
the type of toning (lower
right). Note that I’m
applying this script to a
color photograph;
PhotoKit will create a
B&W photo
automatically.

not mistake them for ordinary curves or color adjustments; I can’t do
anywhere near as good a job myself of replicating the looks of various
kinds of darkroom prints as PhotoKit can.
The B&W Toning Set is the one I fi nd most useful in photo restoration because it very closely replicates the look of many conventional
B&W photographic images (see Chapter 11, Printing Tips, page 440).
Platinum tone, for example, does a spectacular job of creating the look
and feel of a platinum print from any B&W or color photograph (Figure
3-26). Similarly, selenium and brown toning realistically emulates toned
darkroom prints.
The dodges and burns, image sharpening, and noise reduction effects
are equally clever; mundane names belie their complexity. Not all of you
will feel the need for the fi nishing touches that this plug-in can provide,
but I strongly recommend downloading the trial version to get a feel for
yourself of the aesthetic quality of these scripts.
PixelGenius PhotoKit Sharpener (http://www.pixelgenius.com)
Photoshop’s sharpening tools are pretty primitive and not terribly sophisticated. (Picture Window has smarter sharpening tools.) Filters like
Unsharp Masking in Photoshop are convenient, but many scripts and
actions have been written to try to make them work better; in other
words, to do more of the kind of sharpening we want with fewer of the
artifacts we don’t want.
PhotoKit Sharpener ($100) is the logical outgrowth of many of these
hacks. Like PhotoKit, it is a collection of scripts. PhotoKit Sharpener has
four collections of effects. The fi rst two collections deal with sharpening
the captured image (Figure 3-27). The third applies creative sharpening

Plug-Ins

83

Fig. 3-26 Here are the
results of applying
PhotoKit Platinum Tone
to the color photograph
in Figure 3-25. PhotoKit
has created a beautiful
platinum look that would
require considerable skill
to create by hand. The
“platinum” image is in
its own layer; the original
photograph hasn’t been
irrevocably changed the
way it would be if you
used Photoshop’s
Duotone controls to tone
this photograph.

Fig. 3-27 PhotoKit Sharpener has an almost bewildering collection of sharpening options and
methods. The Capture Sharpener collection (left) lets you choose the input medium and an effect to
apply to that medium. Creative Sharpener (center) has three different tools, each with its own large
collection of sharpening effects. Output Sharpener (right) lets you select how the image will be
printed out and optimize the sharpening effect for different devices within that category.

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-28 Applying
PhotoKit Sharpener’s
Edge Sharpen 3 option to
the photograph on the
left produces the one on
the right. As the Layers
window shows, PhotoKit
Sharpener applies its
changes in layers. With
light and dark edges
enhanced separately, you
can control the influence
of each using the Opacity
slider. The original
photograph remains
unaltered in the
background layer.

to enhance an image’s edges and fi ne detail. Last, the output sharpening
collection tweaks the image just enough to compensate for the softening
effects of various kinds of printers and print settings.
The capture sharpening scripts address the modest losses in sharpness
that can occur during scanning. Ideally, one would like to restore those
losses without exaggerating noise at the same time (difficult for true
sharpening algorithms like Focus Magic). PhotoKit Sharpener provides
a bunch of preset sharpening routines for different kinds of input conditions. The plug-in was designed with fi lm scanners and cameras in mind,
not print scanning, but many of the algorithms work well for scans of
faded prints. The manual clearly explains the purpose of each scanning
choice, so you can intelligently decide what will work best with your
print scan. For example, the negative fi lm scan settings do more to
minimize grain enhancement than positive fi lm scan settings, so they’d
be preferable for working with noisy print scans.
The sharpening is applied in separate layers for highlight and shadow
sharpening and each layer’s sharpening selection masks are preserved
(Figure 3-28). You can change the strength of the sharpening by adjusting the opacity of the layer, and you can control where it’s applied to
the scan by modifying the layer mask. For example, if you want a stronger edge effect and less sharpening in broad tonal areas, a simple Curves
adjustment to the mask will do the job.

Plug-Ins

85

Fig. 3-29 Neat Image is
an extremely
sophisticated noise filter
that profiles the noise in
an image, builds a
custom filter from that,
and lets you control
exactly how that filter
gets applied to eliminate
noise from the
photograph. In this
screenshot I’m using
Neat Image to Auto
Profile the noise in the
photograph.

Different printers soften image detail in different ways, so PhotoKit
Sharpener has many preset sharpening routines to optimize the quality
of the output for just about any kind of printing device. Like CurveMeister, this package doesn’t really do anything that you can’t do by hand.
What it does is turn the sharpening expertise of some really talented
people into automated scripts, so you don’t have to reinvent a wheel
that’s already been perfected.
Neat Image Pro+ (http://www.neatimage.com)
Neat Image is an extraordinarily versatile noise- and grain-reduction
program. Hand it any image with undesirable grain or texture in it, and
Neat Image will analyze the characteristics of the photograph and construct a custom profi le tailored to the noise in the photograph (Figure
3-29). Neat Image subdues ordinary fi lm grain or scan noise, paper textures (see Chapter 8, Damage Control, page 307), and even halftone
screens.
Neat Image runs under Mac OS X or Windows 98 and up, as either
a stand-alone program or a Photoshop plug-in. Several different flavors

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CHAPTER 3 Software for Restoration

Fig. 3-30 Once Neat
Image has created its
profile, you can preview
the effect of that profile
on the photograph and
adjust the filter settings
on the right to fi ne-tune
how that filter will be
applied to the
photograph. The settings
are many and complex,
but they all have pop-up
help windows that
explain what they do.

of Neat Image are available, ranging from a free download with useful
but limited capabilities to Pro+, which is 16-bit capable and includes both
the stand-alone and Photoshop plug-in versions of the program. Pro+
runs $75; if you don’t need Photoshop compatibility, then Pro provides
all the same capabilities for $15 less.
Neat Image was surprisingly easy to use, considering how versatile
it is and how many control settings there are to play with. I barely
had to glance at the quick-start instructions before diving in. That’s
not an argument against reading the 60-page manual; you’ll get a lot
more out of the program if you do. It’s a compliment on how well Neat
Image is designed. Controls even have pop-up windows (Figure 3-30)
that give quick instructions in how to use them when you mouse over
them.
Neat Image cleanup is a three-step process. First, generate the noise
profi le. Neat Image analyzes a small portion of the image that is free
from true subject detail to determine the grain and noise characteristics.
It will automatically select that region, but if you don’t like its choice,
you can move the selection box anywhere in the image that you think
is more appropriate. Second, preview the profi le’s effects and alter the
fi lter settings to tailor the noise reduction to your needs. Finally, apply
your fi lter settings to the photograph.
You can save the noise profi le and settings if you want to use them
on a series of similar photographs or experiment with a bunch of different settings to see which ones give you the most attractive fi nal result.
I used Neat Image on an intractably noisy photograph that my other
noise reduction tools were incapable of dealing with (Figure 3-31). The

Plug-Ins

87

Fig. 3-31 Changing the
filter settings in Neat
Image changes its effect
on a photograph. The top
fi gure is the original
noisy photo. The middle
and bottom fi gures are
the same photograph
after being filtered by
Neat Image. The filter
profile is the same in
both of these photos, but
varying the filter settings
greatly altered the
results.

top illustration shows the original photograph, while the middle corresponds to the fi lter settings in Figure 3-30, which I think looks pretty
good. The bottom illustration shows what happens when I turn the fi lter
settings up to maximum strength. Even with maximum noise reduction,
thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surprisingly little loss of real image detail, given the amount of
grain suppression thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going on. Neat Image is one amazing program.

This page intentionally left blank

C H A PTE R 4

Getting the Photo into
the Computer
How-To’s in This Chapter
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How

to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to

unmount a slide
scan a faded B&W print
scan a dark B&W print
scan a magazine or newspaper illustration
improve color with a good scan
inspect very dark parts of a scan
scan color negatives
scan very dense or faded color film
determine what resolution to scan at
photograph tarnished prints

Before you can digitally restore a photograph, you have to get it into the
computer. Most likely you’ll be doing this by scanning the photograph
on a flat-bed or fi lm scanner (although, as I’ll explain on page 126,
sometimes you’re better off rephotographing it).
The closer you can come to working with the original source photograph, the better your restoration will be. You often have no choice in
this matter, but when you do, exercise it. When a client sends you a print
for restoration, ask if the original negative or transparency is available.
In almost every circumstance, you’ll be able to do a better restoration
by scanning the original fi lm than scanning a print derived from it
(Figure 4-1).
It is possible for the original fi lm to be so badly deteriorated, or the
print so heavily retouched, that restoring from a scan of the print is the
better option, but it’s very unusual. Don’t let having to re-create modest
amounts of print retouching dissuade you. Physical retouching is, frankly,
cruder than what you can do on the computer; you can almost always
re-create the retouching work better than the original. Read Katrin

89

90

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-1 The photograph
on the left is a print
made from the slide on
the right. The print has
faded substantially, but
the slide is in nearly
pristine condition. It’s
usually true that original
film will be less
deteriorated than any
prints that have been
made from it.

Eismann’s book, Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, which I recommended
in the Introduction. She’s a retouching wizard.
Half the job of doing a good restoration is making a good scan. Scanning a deteriorated original is not the same as scanning a high-quality
photograph. Usually, you won’t want to make a scan that faithfully
reproduces the photograph in its damaged state. As you’ll learn, that is
more likely to lead to inferior results; at best, it will require you to do
much more work in your image processing program to produce a good
restoration.
Getting a good scan for restoration is not difficult if you follow the
guidelines in this chapter, but this is not knowledge that any of us was
born with. Making a good scan for restoration is a learned skill, and for
that reason you’re better off doing the restoration from a scan you do
yourself than one provided by the client unless that client is very good
at this kind of work. If you have no choice, you can create a good restoration from scans sent to you by others, but if they provide you with
poor scans it will make your life harder.
Some originals are so valuable or fragile that the owners will very
sensibly not let them out of their possession. In that situation the best
you can do is carefully instruct the owner about what constitutes a good
scan and hope for the best. Don’t be discouraged if you can’t get original
source material. Although the results get better the closer to the original
you can get, I’ve done good restorations from lousy scans and mediocre,
highly compressed JPEG fi les that people have e-mailed me (Figure
4-2).
No matter what the source of your image fi le is, never work on the
original fi le when doing your restoration. Save it, and set the saved file’s

Preparation and Cleaning

91

Fig. 4-2 This is a
restoration done from a
JPEG (top) the clients
sent to me of a scan they
did. It’s better to get the
original photograph and
scan it yourself, but don’t
give up hope if all you
can get is a mediocre
JPEG. You still may be
able to produce great
results (bottom).

permission to read-only. Work only on duplicates of the fi le; that way if
you need to start over, you don’t have to rescan the photograph (or ask
the client for replacement scans). Save intermediate results often, in case
you decide to backtrack and try a different approach.
Preparation and Cleaning
One very important way in which scanning damaged photographs
differs from scanning ones in good condition is how you prepare the
photographs for scanning. Old photographs are often fragile, so you
want to stress them as little as possible. If the print you are going to
scan is taped or glued to an album page or mounting board, do not
attempt to remove it or peel the tape away from the photograph. You
will surely damage the photograph. Leave it where it is, and scan it on
the page.

92

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

HOW TO UNMOUNT
A SLIDE

Be careful with photographs that are in those horrid “magic” adhesive photo albums. The gum on the page that is supposed to let you easily
remove or reposition the photograph hardens with time into a rigid
adhesive. Don’t try to pry the photograph away from the adhesive board;
you’ll crack it. Fold back the page’s plastic cover sheet, and scan the
photograph on the album page.
On the other hand, 35-mm slides ought to be removed from their
mounts before scanning. I recommend that you do this because most
fi lm scanners will not produce tack-sharp results unless the fi lm is sandwiched between glass to hold it flat. Even though many scanners are
sold without a glass fi lm carrier as standard equipment, you need it for
getting good scans of slides or negatives. Even if the carrier is deep
enough to accommodate the mount, leaving the slide in its mount just
prevents the glass from doing its job.
✓
Plastic slide mounts open pretty easily. Many are designed to be
opened, and the rest can be snapped apart by prying up on one face of
the mount at the edge with a blade until the spot welds that hold the
two halves together break. It won’t take a lot of force.
Cardboard mounts are more of a pain. You’ll need a sharp thin blade,
like a single-edge razor blade or X-Acto knife, and a steady hand. Don’t
try to cut directly through the cardboard near the slide to free it; unless
you are very experienced at this, there’s too much of a risk that your
hand will slip and you will cut the slide. There’s a safer way.
Look closely at the edges of the mount, and you will usually see fi ne
perforations along one edge. Carefully cut through those perforations
and try to peel the cardboard apart. If there aren’t any perforations, cut
the edge where the seam is most obvious (Figure 4-3). The cardboard is
glued together, but don’t worry about damaging it. Do make sure it’s the
cardboard that you’re bending, though, and not the slide when you do
this.
If you’re fortunate, the mount will split right along the center window,
and you’ll be able to lift the slide out of the mount. If the mount didn’t
split at exactly the right point, there will be only a thin layer of paper
covering the edges of the slide and preventing you from removing it. You
can easily cut away that paper to get to the slide. Sometimes the slide is
spot-glued along one or both perforated edges to the cardboard. Slip the
tip of the blade (carefully!) between the slide and the cardboard to break
those glue points (Figure 4-4).
Scanners are notoriously good at exaggerating every little defect and
flaw; it’s virtually impossible to produce a perfectly clean scan regardless of the state of the original. If we start with a dirty original, the time
and effort involved in cleaning it up on the computer is horrendous.
Normally, we take fairly aggressive steps to eliminate every bit of dirt
and dust before we make the scan in order to reduce the time and
tedium of retouching an inordinate number of spot and specks in the
computer.

Preparation and Cleaning

93

Fig. 4-3 Slides are best
scanned when theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re
unmounted. To split open
a cardboard slide mount,
carefully slice around the
edges with a sharp,
narrow blade. Observe
the position of the blade
between the two halves
of the cardboard
sandwich.

Fig. 4-4 Once youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
sliced the edges of the
mount, you should be
able to pry the halves
apart. The slide will
probably be glued to
one-half of the mount
along one or both edges.
Carefully slip the blade of
the knife between the
slide and the cardboard
to slice through this
bond.

94

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

I always clean my regular photographs (that is, the ones in good
condition) with PEC-12 and PEC Pads, dust them off with an anti-static
brush, and give them a solid blast of compressed air to remove any lingering specks. I’ve become almost obsessive about cleanliness. It’s a kind
of conditioned response; whenever I slack off, I end up with a scan that
takes me hours to tidy up, and that shock to my system provides powerful negative reinforcement for any sloppy cleaning techniques.
But . . . this is not the approach you want to take when performing
a restoration. Deteriorated images are frequently in a very fragile physical state. Bits of emulsion may just be waiting to flake off at a too-fi rm
touch. Any kind of wet cleaning is an especially bad idea. Water is an
absolute no-no. In the case of prints, it can wash away important retouching or cause it to bleed and leave you with a complete mess on your
hands. Water may also mobilize damaging chemicals locked in the paper
base and actually hasten the further deterioration of the photograph. In
the case of color fi lms and older prints, the fi nal processing step usually
involves a stabilizing chemical; dilute that and you compromise image
permanence even more.
Mold or mildew actually makes emulsions soluble in water! The little
bugs gobbling away at the photo damage the gelatin enough so that it
will dissolve if you get it wet. Inorganic chemicals can attack emulsions
in similar ways; spots and stains on the photograph may turn out to be
places where the image can dissolve. If you apply a water-based cleaner,
you’ll remove the entire image in those areas.
Even solvent-based cleaners like PEC-12 are not to be trusted with
older originals. PEC-12, for example, will dissolve unhardened gelatin
and albumen emulsions, and it should not be used on photographs that
have suffered biological or chemical damage. The manufacturer, Photographic Solutions (photosol.com), makes no secret of this and warns
that PEC-12 should never be applied to a photograph of unknown
characteristics.
Many cleaners carry no such warnings; that does not make them
safer. You can do irreparable harm by attempting any sort of wet cleaning of deteriorated photographs. Because deterioration is often not
uniform over the entire photograph (chemical spots and mildew stains
being prime examples), a spot test at one corner of a photograph that
goes well is no assurance that the entire image will survive cleaners.
This is not even considering the other kinds of physical damage you
might easily do. If the photograph’s surface is delicate, even the most
careful wet cleaning runs the serious risk of scratching the surface with
bits of dust and dirt picked up by the cleaning pad as it’s wiping down
the photograph.
Wet cleaning should be left to knowledgeable professionals. It’s a very
risky process never to be undertaken by amateur conservators. The only
wet cleaning I ever do is to the glass side of a glass plate. Glass is hard
and inert enough that it’s safe to clean dirt and grime from it. Be careful

Scanning Prints—Maximize Your Information by Getting the Tones Right

not to use so much cleaning solution that any can leak onto the emulsion side of the plate. Just dampen the cleaning pad, don’t saturate it.
Never use cotton swabs such as Q-tips. I mention this because they’re
a common tool used by photographers and retouchers, but they are really
very abrasive. In my tests of several different cleaning aids, cotton swabs
scratched even worse than ordinary kitchen paper towels or facial tissues.
They will mar an original more readily than just about anything else
you might use.
The least abrasive materials I’ve tested are the PEC Pads made by
Photographic Solutions, the folks who make PEC-12. But even PEC Pads
are not perfectly nonabrasive; nothing is. That’s why I recommend avoiding as much physical contact with the original as possible.
So, how do I clean originals before restoration? Minimally. A very
light and delicate dusting with a very soft anti-static brush. Then careful
bursts of compressed air. If a dust speck or bit of lint doesn’t want to
move, I leave it. I do everything in my power to stifle my justifiably
obsessive cleaning impulses. It is simply not worth the risk of damaging
an irreplaceable original to save myself some spotting time on the
computer.

Scanning Prints—Maximize Your Information by Getting the
Tones Right
A good photograph almost always has a full range of tones from black
(or nearly black) to white (or nearly white). See Chapter 5, Restoring
Tone, for more elaboration on this point, but for the time being take it
as gospel.
Correspondingly, a good scan of a deteriorated photograph spans
most of the range of values from near-black to near-white. It doesn’t
throw away any of the intermediate tones in the photograph by forcing
them to pure white or pure black. This is true for color as well as B&W
photographs. A good scan’s histogram looks like the middle one in
Figure 4-5; you don’t want it to look like the top or bottom histograms.
The former makes poor use of the range of available values, while the
latter clips some of the near-whites and near-blacks.
It’s usually a bad idea to make a scan that faithfully reproduces a ✓ HOW TO SCAN A
deteriorated photograph. The upper photo in Figure 4-6 is a straight, FADED B&W PRINT
uncorrected 8-bit scan from a faded B&W print. This is not a good basis
for a restoration. The upper histogram in Figure 4-7 shows why. Only
half the total range of values available is actually being used in this scan.
I can expand the tonal range of the scan in Photoshop to restore the
photograph to a full-valued, neutral-colored image, but if I do that I get
one of those unwelcome “picket fence” histograms (Figure 4-7, bottom).
There are many gaps in the tonal scale that will show up as discontinuous-tone steps in the print (Figure 4-8, left). The bottom photo in Figure

95

96

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-5 A good scan
uses most of the range of
tonal values available.
The histogram at the top
is from a scan that is too
low in contrast; barely
half of the full range of
256 values is being used.
The middle histogram
shows an ideal scan;
most of the values have
some data, but no
information is being
clipped off. The
histogram at the bottom
shows a scan that is too
contrasty. There are big
spikes at values of 0 and
255, which means that
some light and dark
tones have been forced
to pure B&W. That
highlight and shadow
information is lost
forever; avoid that in
your scans.

Scanning Prints—Maximize Your Information by Getting the Tones Right

97

Fig. 4-6 A good scan is
vitally important to doing
a good restoration. The
upper photo is a straight
8-bit scan from a badly
faded original, similar in
appearance to the
original photograph. It is
a very poor place to start
from because it doesn’t
take advantage of the
full range of tonal values
that are available in the
scan. I adjusted the
scanner software’s curves
and levels controls in
each color channel in the
scanner software to
produce a good range of
tones for all three colors.
(I also desaturated the
image in Photoshop to
eliminate a small amount
of lingering color cast.)
That produced the good
8-bit scan in the bottom
photograph; it has a
histogram like the middle
one in Figure 4-5.

4-6 is from a good scan, one where I adjusted the curves and levels
controls in the scanner software to produce an image that had a much
more complete and neutral range of tones. When I use that as the basis
for my restoration, I get results like that in Figure 4-8, right; here, there
is good, continuous tonal quality.
Any time you use your image-processing software to expand the
range of tones that you have in the scan, you’re going to get some gaps
in the gray scale. That’s normal, and a few gaps in the histograms really
won’t be visible in a print. Don’t be obsessed by the histogram. Some
folks feel that if there are any gaps at all in their photograph’s histogram,
the quality of the output will be terribly compromised. That’s an extreme
exaggeration; a moderate number of gaps are almost never visible in the
print. The examples I’m presenting here are extreme so that I can make

HOW TO SCAN A
FADED B&W PRINT
(continued)

98

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-7 These
histograms show the
problems that a poor 8bit scan will cause. The
top histogram is from the
top scan in Figure 4-6.
The bottom histogram
shows what happens
when I attempt to restore
that scan in Photoshop to
produce a photograph
with a full range of tones
from black to white.
There are many gaps in
the histogram because
there aren’t enough
distinct gray levels to fill
them in. This “picket
fence” problem degrades
the quality of the
restoration.

HOW TO SCAN A
FADED B&W PRINT
(continued)

it clear that many gaps are not a good thing, but you can have a pretty
ratty-looking histogram and still see excellent tonality in the fi nal print.
Unless I’ll be expanding or compressing the tonal scale by more than
25% when I work on the fi le, I don’t worry about gaps.
There are two routes to better, fuller histograms. The first is to do all
your scanning in 16-bit mode. There is much to be said for this, and it’s
my normal working habit. Even when the original has a very narrow
tonal range, as in Figure 4-6, a 16-bit scan will usually capture enough
gray levels to produce a fully populated histogram when the tonal scale
is expanded to produce a normal range of densities from black to white.
That produces much better tonality in the fi nished restoration.
The other way to avoid the picket fence histogram is to adjust the
levels and curves controls in the scanner software to produce a good
range of data in the scan. All scanners collect data internally to more

Scanning Prints—Maximize Your Information by Getting the Tones Right

99

Fig. 4-8 Enlarged
portions of fi nished
restorations from the
straight (left) and
optimized scans (right) in
Figure 4-6. The “picket
fence” effect degrades
the tonal quality of the
left restoration. Only
about half the normal
number of gray levels is
available in the scan. The
skin tones look sandy
instead of smooth
because there are
intermediates tones
missing. The restoration
from the optimized scan
shows very smooth
tonality because it uses
almost all the available
tonal levels.

than 8 bits even if you’ve set the controls to output an 8-bit scan. The HOW TO SCAN A
B&W PRINT
scanner has plenty of extra value levels available to fi ll in any holes, just FADED
(continued)
as you do when you work on a 16-bit fi le in the computer. That means
you can greatly expand or compress parts of the tonal range in the
scanner settings without producing tonal gaps in an 8-bit output.
By the way, it’s true that most scanners (and digital cameras, for that
matter) don’t produce true 16-bit fi les. That is, they don’t actually produce
216 (65,000) distinct gray levels for each color channel. More commonly
they produce 10 or 12 bits worth of clean and distinct tonal information.
The really good ones may produce 14. But that’s plenty! Even 10 bits of
clean data is 1000 gray levels—there will be four gray levels in this fi le
for every one that you’d have in an 8-bit scan. That means you could
expand portions of the tonal range by a factor of four before you would
start to see gaps in the histogram. I expanded the range of tones in
Figure 4-7 by only half that much (a factor of two), and that was a major
adjustment. Expanding the tonal scale by a factor of four is enough to
correct the most seriously faded photograph. So, even a few extra bits of
data in each pixel are sufficient to give you full histograms with few
gaps, no matter how much you manipulate the photograph.
Here’s how making the scanner adjustment works in practice. The ✓ HOW TO SCAN A
B&W print in Figure 4-9 has a very limited range of tones because of DARK B&W PRINT
fading and staining. A straight 8-bit scan with no special corrections

100

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-9 This photograph
is very dark and low in
contrast. In all
probability it was printed
poorly to begin with, but
that’s fi xable with digital
restoration.
HOW TO SCAN A
DARK B&W PRINT
(continued)

produces the upper histogram in Figure 4-10. You can see that this
doesn’t come close to taking advantage of the full number of levels available in Photoshop.
Figure 4-12 shows the Levels adjustments I made in my scanner
software. Observe how I’ve pulled in the “white” and “black” sliders so
that they more closely bracket the range of tones in the print. Allow
yourself some safety margin. Keep the darkest pixels in the scan at
values of 10 to 20 and the lightest pixels around 240. That way you’ll
avoid accidentally clipping the highlights or shadows. If you need a pure
white or a pure black in the fi nished restoration, you can adjust the
range in your computer without visibly compromising tonal quality.
The results of this adjusted scan are clearly much better both visually
and data-wise (Figure 4-11). The histogram looks much fuller (Figure
4-10, lower). This would be a good starting point for restoration in either
an 8-bit or a 16-bit scan.
Even though I’m working with a “B&W” original, I scanned it in
full-color mode. A scanner’s “B&W” mode usually uses only one channel
(green) of data. That yields noisier scans than scanning in full-color
mode and combining the channels in your image processing program.
It’s easy enough to convert the image to monochrome once it’s in your
computer, and the quality will be much better.
Don’t worry about the exact image color when you’re scanning
monochrome originals. Once you’ve got the scan in the computer, you’ll
desaturate it and neutralize any color casts. When you print the restored
image, you can adjust the color to replicate the look of an original, pristine print. I tell you several ways to do that in Chapter 11, Printing Tips.

Scanning Printsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Maximize Your Information by Getting the Tones Right

101

Fig. 4-10 The top
histogram shows how
little tonal information
there is in Figure 4-9.
Barely one-third of the
histogram bins contain
any data. The bottom
histogram represents
Figure 4-11, which was
made using the scanner
levels settings shown in
Figure 4-12. This is a
much better populated
histogram than that of
the straight scan.

The PhotoKit plug-in I (Chapter 3, Software for Restoration, page 81) has
some very nice presets for antique print looks.
Color is a valuable tool for restoring B&W photographs. Differences
in color in different parts of the photograph are evidence of damage or
deterioration. Color is a distinguishing factor you can use when creating
masks that select especially damaged areas for restorative work (see
Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 244). You can also use that differential
color information to fi x the damaged parts of the photograph (Chapter
8, Damage Control, page 278). There are even advantages to scanning
monochrome photographs with exaggerated and unrealistic color. Exaggerated hues in the photograph can be most useful for creating masks
that isolate areas of tarnish, tape marks, and stains (Figure 4-13). Once
selectively masked, you can apply corrections to those areas separate
from the rest of the image. This is an extremely effective way of elimi-

102

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-11 This is a much
better scan of the
photograph in Figure 4-9.
The scanner’s Input
Levels settings in Figure
4-11 expanded the tonal
range to something more
normal and attractive
(and revealed a great
deal of physical damage
in the photograph).

Fig. 4-12 These scanner
level settings turned
Figure 4-9 into Figure 411. Observe how the
B&W set points are
positioned just outside
the range of populated
bins in the histogram.
Such a setting ensures
that no shadow or
highlight detail gets
clipped.

nating surface tarnish and silvering-out. You can read about a full restoration of the photo from Figure 4-13 in Chapter 8, page 298.
Here’s another reason for not scanning your prints in B&W mode:
The color channel the scanner uses for B&W scanning is not necessarily
the best one to use for a restoration. That’s a choice you, not an unthinking piece of hardware, need to make. In Figure 4-14 the red channel is
by far the most useful for performing a clean restoration. The damage
to the original photograph is substantially less visible in this channel
because the stains are primarily orange-yellow in color.
When I’m ready to convert the scan of a monochrome photograph to
grayscale, I almost never use the Desaturate adjustment or grayscale

Scanning Printsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Maximize Your Information by Getting the Tones Right

103

Fig. 4-13 The fi gure on the left is the original, tarnished photograph. I exaggerated the color saturation in the scan I made (middle)
so that the tarnish would stand out clearly. I used that exaggerated color difference to make a mask that selected for the tarnish,
making it much easier to correct the damage and restore the photograph (right).

Fig. 4-14 Most B&W photographs will show less damage in one color channel than in the others.
This photograph is very badly stained and faded (left). Most of the stains, though, are orange-yellow
in color, which means that they hardly show up at all in the red channel of the scan (right). Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
the channel to use as the basis for a good B&W restoration.

104

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

mode conversion. Instead, I use the Channel Mixer with the monochrome option selected.
Why? It’s about control. Desaturate simply mixes equal amounts of
all three color channels. It’s a good choice when all three channels in
your scan are of equal quality, with none significantly noisier nor
showing more dirt and stains than the others. Torn or cracked photographs that otherwise are clean and unfaded may have these qualities,
but badly deteriorated B&W photographs usually don’t.
Automatic grayscale conversion does a weighted mix of the three
channels, about 60% green, 30% red, and 10% blue. This will hardly
ever be the optimum mix for converting a scan. Channel Mixer, however,
lets me specify how much of each color channel goes into the grayscale
version of the photograph. Sometimes one channel is obviously superior
to the others, such as in Figure 4-14, in which case I’ll use 100% of that
channel. At other times one channel may be significantly worse than
the other two, so I’ll use none of that channel and some weighted mix
of the other two (it doesn’t have to be 50%–50%).
So, you see that how you do the conversion to monochrome (assuming that’s what you want to do) depends on the characteristics of the
photograph and exactly how you plan to restore it. A conversion that
eliminates one or more color channels of data because they emphasize
defects is a good place to start a restoration. Conversely, a conversion
that emphasizes the channels that show damage most clearly will be
useful for constructing selections and masks to isolate the damaged areas
for repair (Chapter 7, page 246).
For these reasons, don’t gratuitously throw away information. Even
if you’re sure that the fi nal photograph will be reconstructed from only
one color channel, save the other two. You may fi nd that they contain
information that’s going to help you in other ways.
Scanning Halftones

HOW TO SCAN A
MAGAZINE OR
NEWSPAPER
ILLUSTRATION

You may not know the term halftone, but most of the photographs you
see are halftone reproductions. Newspaper and magazine reproductions
are halftones. The photograph is made up of a pattern of black (or colored)
dots on white paper (Figure 4-15). The illusion of continuous tone is
created by variations in the size of the dots to produce more or less ink
coverage of the paper, but there really aren’t any intermediate tones.
✓
A good scan of a halftone print has very different characteristics than
a good scan of a regular, continuous-tone photograph. When scanning a
regular photograph, it’s important not to push the extreme tones all the
way to pure white or pure black, lest you accidentally lose some highlight
or shadow detail. The best scan of a halftone, though, will almost always
be one that makes the majority of the ink dots come out close to a true
black and most of the un-inked paper close to true white. That means
setting the white and black level points in your scanner software (Figure

Scanning Halftones

105

Fig. 4-15 This is a highly
magnifi ed view of a B&W
newspaper print. There
are no intermediate
tones in the image, just
black dots of varying size
that simulate the
appearance of different
shades of gray.

Fig. 4-16 These are the scanner software levels settings I used to create Figure 4-15. Notice how I
set the black and white end points inside the range of tones seen by the scanner. That makes the
ink blacker and the paper whiter, minimizing or eliminating stains and faded spots in the halftone.
That makes it much easier to restore this photograph.

4-16) well within the range of tones in the photograph. The correct white
and black level points are the ones that come closest to achieving this
without obliterating the very smallest dots. The histogram you see in the
fi nished scan should look something like that of Figure 4-17.
Figure 4-17 is very different from a good histogram for a continuoustone photograph, where you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want the scan to force any of the tones

HOW TO SCAN A
MAGAZINE OR
NEWSPAPER
ILLUSTRATION
(continued)

106

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-17 This is the
histogram for the
halftone scan in Figure 415. Unlike a good scan of
a continuous-tone
photograph, a good
halftone scan will have
lots of pixels that are
pure white and pure
black.

HOW TO SCAN A
MAGAZINE OR
NEWSPAPER
ILLUSTRATION
(continued)

in the photograph to pure white and pure black. Also, because you don’t
care about having lots of continuous-tone information in a halftone
scan, there’s no need to scan in 16-bit mode. Eight-bit mode works just
as well for halftone scans, and you’ll get fi les that will be only half as
big and will process twice as quickly.
In Chapter 9, Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements, page 320, I show you
some ways to get rid of the dot pattern (a process known as “descreening”). A high-resolution scan, which shows the size and shapes of the
dots clearly, works best for this. I scan a halftone at four to eight times
the dot spacing. Newspaper photographs will be reproduced with somewhere between 65 and 100 dots per inch (this, by the way, is the actual
and correct use of dpi as a unit of measurement). Magazine illustrations
can be anywhere between 125 and 200 dpi. I never scan at less than
600 ppi and sometimes I go to 1200.
Pulling in the Color

HOW TO IMPROVE
COLOR WITH A
GOOD SCAN

The same overall principles that work for scanning B&W prints apply to
scanning color prints (and for that matter, slides, but not color negatives). It’s usually a safe bet to assume the print originally had a complete
range of tones from paper-white to maximum black. Unless you know
that the original had a limited range of tones in one or more channels,
strive for a scan that makes best use of the full range of values available
and looks similar in overall color balance to your desired result.
✓
Adjust the levels or curves in the scanner software the same way you
would if you were scanning B&W prints (Figure 4-18). Frequently this
will give you a very good start on a proper restoration (Figure 4-19). In
Chapter 10, Examples (page 354), I can take the scan from Figure 4-19

Pulling in the Color

107

Fig. 4-18 The rules for
making a good color scan
are no different than
those for making a good
B&W one. The only
difference is that you
have three channels to
correct instead of one.
This fi gure shows the
scanner software levels
settings I used to make a
good scan of the
photograph in Figure 419. In each of the three
color channels, I adjusted
the black and white end
points so that they
bracketed the full range
of tonal information in
that channel without
clipping any of it. I made
a slight overall color
correction by adjusting
the gray midpoint for the
blue channel from 1.0 to
0.8 (that is, I moved the
gray slider triangle to the
right). That made the
scan a bit more yellow,
eliminating a blue cast.

and turn it into a fully restored photograph by making just a handful of
further corrections.
You may fi nd that even when you make these adjustments the resulting scan has an overall color cast. You can correct much of that in the
scan by shifting the midtone sliders in each channel’s levels adjustment
until the average color looks good. This can make a substantial difference
in the quality of the scan and get you well on the way to a complete
restoration. The “corrected” scan of the photograph in Figure 4-19 originally had a blue color cast. I adjusted the midpoint in the levels control
for the blue channel (bottom histogram in Figure 4-18) to make the scan
more yellow.

HOW TO IMPROVE
COLOR WITH A
GOOD SCAN
(continued)

108

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-19 The fi gure on
the left is the original
photograph. I scanned it
using the scanner
software levels settings
shown in Figure 4-18.
Those settings produced
the photo on the right,
which is well on its way
to having completely
restored color.

It can take a while to become proficient at scanning, and some trialand-error time will always be involved. Scanning badly deteriorated
prints is a bit of an interpretive art. I fi nd that I usually make three or
four different scans of a print before I settle on the one that I’m most
happy with.
If you plan on using tools like the DIGITAL ROC Photoshop plug-in
to restore the photograph’s color, don’t go overboard on messing with
the scanner curves. DIGITAL ROC is surprisingly insensitive to the
quality of a scan. It produces results almost as good from a straight scan
that looks just like the faded photograph as from one with the B&W
levels carefully normalized to produce a full range of tones.
Moreover, if you distort the curve shapes substantially in trying to
fi ne-tune the color by eye, it can confuse DIGITAL ROC, which works
its magic by analyzing the distribution of tones and colors in the photograph. The recovered color in that case may actually be worse than it
would be if you didn’t refi ne the scan as much—yet another reason why
I usually fiddle with several different scans before settling on the one
that will work best for my restoration.
Not so incidentally, don’t worry about profi ling your scanner (or
camera) for accurate color and tonal rendition. The originals you’re scanning will have badly distorted colors and tones, and you’re going to end
up substantially modifying those. As I’ve said for B&W, capturing values
exactly the way they are in the original not only doesn’t matter—it’s
often counterproductive.

Is 16 Bits Really Necessary?

Fig. 4-20 The fi gure on the left shows the original photograph, captured as a 16-bit scan, with no
effort made to correct the tonal color during scanning. This is an accurate representation of the
original photograph. On the right is the same scan after I crudely corrected the color using the curves
in Figure 4-22. Having 16 bits of data per color channel makes it possible to do extreme corrections
like this and still get a photograph of good quality.

Is 16 Bits Really Necessary?
I prefer to scan in 16-bit mode. I’ve found that the ideal way to produce
scans and extract maximum formation from the original photograph is
to optimize the curves and levels settings in the scanner software and
do a 16-bit scan. I usually do this because ultimately it saves me work
time. Truth be told, in 16-bit mode I can be rather sloppy about the levels
and curves in the scanner settings, just not so much that I’m likely to
lose any data by overdoing it. I can scan batches of photographs in 16-bit
mode using similar scanner settings with less trial-and-error and repeated
scans that otherwise eat up considerable time. None of the scans will be
perfect when done this way, but with 16 bits of tonal depth to play with,
there’s plenty of data for me to fi x everything in the computer.
Figures 4-20 through 4-22 show how flexible 16-bit data is. The lefthand photograph (Figure 4-20) and histograms (Figure 4-21) come from
a straight scan of a snapshot with no corrections. Because the photograph is so faded, less than half of the range of tonal values is actually
used; the spikes at the right side of the histograms are just from the
white paper border. I crudely corrected the range of tones and colors
with the curves settings shown in Figure 4-22 to get the much better
looking photograph on the right side of Figure 4-20.
These are very extreme corrections! Even so, the histograms in the
right side of Figure 4-21 show that I did not get the dreaded “picket
fence” effect that is so obvious in Figure 4-7. I have a well-populated
histogram that will produce good, continuous-tone quality in the fi nished restoration. I would never recommend accepting a scan this bad,

109

110

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-21 The histogram
on the left belongs to the
left-hand photograph in
Figure 4-20. Each color
channel in the scan has
only a narrow range of
tones (the big spike on
the right in each
histogram channel
corresponds to the
“white” paper border).
The histogram on the
right shows what the
tones look like after
applying the curves in
Figure 4-22, which
produced the right-hand
side of Figure 4-20.
Notice that there is no
“picket fence” effect,
with gaps in the
histogram, as we saw in
Figure 4-7.

even in 16-bit mode. It demonstrates, though, the considerable robustness of a 16-bit scan.
You may fi nd that a practical limitation on doing 16-bit scans will be
the power of your computer. It’s not just that computations take twice
as long. I pointed out in Chapter 2, page 34, that an 8-inch by 10-inch
print scanned at 600 ppi in 16-bit mode is going to produce a 175-MB
fi le. Start adding layers to that in Photoshop, or working with multiple
generations in Picture Window, and in short order you’re swapping
scratch fi les to disk. Your performance crashes dramatically. It’s something to keep in mind when you’re deciding on your scan depth. It may
seem that scanning in 8-bit mode and consequently having to really
fi ne-tune your scanner settings will slow down your work, but that’s not
going to be the case if doing a 16-bit scan means that your image processing program goes running to the hard drive every time you perform
an operation on the fi le.

Is 16 Bits Really Necessary?

Fig. 4-22 These are the curves I used to correct Figure 4-20. The contrast change in each channel
is extreme, expanding the tonal range by a factor of two to three. This would have produced visible
image degradation in an 8-bit scan; a 16-bit scan, however, has enough extra data to handle it.

111

112

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-23 The upper
fi gure shows a very badly
faded glass plate. I
scanned it and inverted
the tones, producing the
photograph in the lower
fi gure. There’s plenty of
information here to do a
restoration from, but the
density and contrast vary
so much in different
parts of the plate that it
would be impossible to
do a good restoration
from an 8-bit scan, even
with carefully adjusted
scanner software
settings. This is a case
where 16-bit scans are a
must for good results.

Back when I only had 512 MB or 1 GB of RAM in my machines, I
did my best to avoid working on 16-bit fi les unless the originals were
quite small. Now that I have 2 GB, I’m inclined to scan in 16-bit mode,
if for no other reason than to reassure myself that I really captured all
of the data in the photograph.
Sometimes 16-bit data is going to be a must. When the condition of
the original is so uneven that no overall set of corrections in scanning is
going to produce good results, you’ll need those extra bits. I’m currently
restoring a severely degraded glass plate (Figure 4-23) that is almost
entirely bleached out, and the scanned density isn’t anything close to
even. Until I can manipulate the file into a uniform-looking image, I need
to work in 16 bits so that I can do different strong corrections on different
parts of the scan and still have well-fi lled histograms of data.
If your computer really isn’t up to working on 16-bit fi les for the
whole restoration process, I recommend a compromise. Do your scans

How to Scan B&W Film and Glass Plates

113

and as much of the gross color and tone correction as you can in 16-bit
mode. Then convert the fi le to 8-bit mode. That will minimize the
image-quality problems of working with 8-bit fi les. Don’t worry about
doing damage repair and cleaning up dust, scratches, and cracks before
you convert. You can do that work as invisibly in 8-bit mode as in 16-bit
mode.
The closer you get to the fi nished restoration, the less having 16-bit
data will matter. When you get to the output stage, 16-bit color may not
make any difference. Today’s printer drivers don’t take advantage of 16bit data. For example, if you converted your fi nished 16-bit fi le to 8-bit
just before printing, you would see absolutely no difference in the print
quality. Also, while Photoshop and TIFF fi le formats preserve 16-bit
data, JPEG doesn’t. If your clients wants the fi nished image in JPEG
form, you will be sending them 8-bit color, no matter what you were
working on in the computer.
How to Scan B&W Film and Glass Plates
If you’re working from roll fi lm originals, a high-quality fi lm scanner is
in order; if you’re trying to scan old B&W sheet fi lm or glass plates, a
very good flat-bed scanner is going to be necessary. Old glass plates and
sheet fi lm are especially challenging to scan well. Old-style photographic
emulsions were typically much more contrasty than modern fi lms. The
older the photograph, the more likely it is to place severe demands on
your scanner’s ability to capture detail in the highlights, the densest
parts of the negative (Figure 4-24). In Chapter 10, Examples, page 341,
I do a complete repair and restoration on the photograph shown in
Figure 4-24.
The situation is made worse because the grains of silver that make
up the image are more likely to scatter light out of the optical path than

Fig. 4-24 Old B&W films
and glass plates are
often very dense and
contrasty. They demand a
lot from your scanner. I
was just barely able to
capture a good scan of
this cracked glass plate
negative on my
professional flat-bed
scanner.

114

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

back into it. Consequently, most scanners read B&W silver emulsion
densities as being much higher than what you would measure on a
densitometer and than the equivalent density in a dye-based (color or
B&W chromogenic) photographic image. For example, my Minolta
DiMAGE Multi Pro fi lm scanner can handle about 4.2 density units
(d.u.) in color fi lm and chromogenic B&W fi lm like Ilford XP2, but it’s
limited to silver-based B&W densities of 2.7 to 3.0 d.u.
That’s a lot, by modern darkroom standards, but unfortunately not
by early photographic standards; the printing materials they used then
had extremely long exposure ranges. Adding to the difficulties are early
photographers’ predilections for generous exposures. Emulsion making
and exposure determination were nowhere near the precise crafts that
they are today. It was far better to have to “print through” some extra
and unneeded density than to underexpose and be saddled with an
unprintably thin or mostly blank negative, so the majority of old fi lms
and plates are dense.
The only times when you’re not likely to see high B&W densities are
when the original is severely faded or bleached, as in Figure 4-23. That
doesn’t make repairs any easier! Such damage is rarely uniform across
the photograph, and a very narrow contrast range in the negative only
serves to exaggerate the impact of dirt and scratches.
Whenever you scan contrasty and high-density originals, regardless
of the fi lm format or type, be sure to mask off the unexposed areas at
the edges of the fi lm, fi lm sprocket holes, and the clear parts of the fi lm
carrier or platen. The unattenuated white light blasting through those
clear areas will cause flare that degrades the quality of the scan if you
don’t block it (Figures 4-25 and 4-26). Good fi lm scanners come with
masks for different formats, so you shouldn’t have to worry about this.
When scanning dense fi lm or plates on my flat-bed scanner, I just mask
off the surrounding area with strips of black construction paper. It’s
simple, even primitive, but it’s most effective.
Scanning old B&W plates and fi lms is best done in 16-bit mode, using
whatever scanner settings will let you capture the maximum density
range. Finding out what that is for your scanner will take some experimentation. In some scanners, 16-bit mode automatically captures a
longer density range; in others (my Minolta DiMAGE, for example)
there may be a separate mode with a name like “16-bit linear” that
captures the longest density range.
Even though you are scanning a B&W negative, you’ll probably fi nd
that you can capture the longest density range if you tell the scanner
software that you’re working with a color transparency. Frequently
scanner software tries to be “helpful” and scan for normal-contrast
results. The software boosts contrast and restricts the range of densities
you capture if you scan the fi lm as a negative instead of as a transparency because modern negatives, B&W and color, have lower density
ranges and less contrast than slide fi lms.

How to Scan B&W Film and Glass Plates

115

Fig. 4-25 Clear areas
around the image must
be masked off when
scanning a dense
negative. The upper
fi gure shows the scan I
made of this glass plate
on my flat-bed scanner
when I didn’t mask off
the clear areas of the
platen. The lower fi gure
shows the scan made
with exactly the same
settings, but this time I
used black paper to mask
off the region outside of
the image. Figure 4-26
shows what a difference
this made in the quality
of the highlights (densest
parts) of the negative.

You are going to need to run some experiments to fi nd out what ✓ HOW TO INSPECT
DARK PARTS
combination of these settings works best with your equipment. Don’t VERY
OF A SCAN
worry about what gets captured in the shadows (the thin parts of the
negative); they will take care of themselves. Open up the scan fi les in
your image processing program, and look at how much information you
capture in the densest highlight areas (Figure 4-27). Use the Curves tool
to exaggerate the highlight detail, making it easier to compare quality
between the scans (Figure 4-28). Find the scanning mode that gets you
the maximum amount of highlight information, and stick with it for all
your scans unless the original is severely faded.

116

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-26 Here’s an enlarged portion of the unmasked (left) and masked (right) scans of Figure 4-25.
I lightened the scans and increased their contrast to make more visible the highlight detail (the dense
parts of the negative). Even though this area is in the very center of the plate, far from the unmasked
edges, flare has crept in and lightened the high-density areas. It also reduced contrast; the folds and
ripples in the white dress aren’t as clear in the unmasked scan as the masked one. The masked scan
has much better highlight detail and contrast.

Fig. 4-27 An easy way to check whether you’ve got good highlight detail in the scan of a very dense
negative is to increase its brightness and contrast using the curve in Figure 4-28. The photo on the
left shows the scan viewed normally. The photograph on the right shows the same scan after I applied
the enhancing curve in Photoshop.

Scanning Color Film

117

Fig. 4-28 This curve
increases the contrast in
a negative’s highlights
fourfold. It makes it
possible to clearly see
the quality of the
highlight detail in scans
of very dark negatives.

When you are working with extremely contrasty originals, consider
making two scans with very different exposures, one for the highlights
and one for the shadows. In Photoshop CS2, you can use the “Merge to
HDR” automation to combine several differently exposed 16- or 8-bit
fi les into a single, extended-range image. Picture Window has a simple
tutorial explaining how to do this using its Stack Image operation. This
operation is a lot more intuitive than Photoshop’s automation, and I like
Picture Window’s results much better. I give you detailed instructions
on using it in Chapter 9 on page 316.
Depending on the capabilities of your scanner, combining multiple
scans may not capture a longer density range than a single scan could.
But it will get you much higher quality data in the extreme highlights
and shadows, with less noise and better tonal separation.
Be aware that, just like point-source enlargers, most fi lm scanners
also really exaggerate scratches and dust and dirt. There are software
tools that will help reduce that, but using them without compromising
sharpness is tricky. Hardware-based scratch and dust suppression, such
as the DIGITAL ICE found in dedicated fi lm scanners, won’t work with
silver-based images. Resign yourself to the fact that a certain amount of
“spotting” is necessary with any scan.
Scanning Color Film
Scanning old color negative fi lm is usually more of an aesthetic than
technical challenge. Old color fi lm does not have much higher densities

118

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

HOW TO SCAN
COLOR NEGATIVES

than modern fi lm. Unless you’re scanning a relatively recent photograph
that has only suffered physical damage that needs repair, you’ll be
dealing with color emulsions that have faded with time, so their
maximum densities are even lower. Most scanners should have no
trouble capturing the full range of densities in a negative.
✓
I strongly recommend capturing negatives in 16-bit mode, especially
16-bit linear mode if it’s available. Because a negative’s contrast is naturally low, it gets boosted substantially when it’s printed, even more so if
the negative is faded. If you start with a mere 8-bit scan, you will run
the risk of getting a “picket fence” histogram that’s bad enough to
degrade the quality of the restored photograph, the same way you would
with a straight scan of a badly faded print (Figure 4-8).
I recommend 16-bit linear mode for scanning color negatives because
most scanner software assumes that when you scan a negative you want
a positive image of “normal” contrast and color saturation. Usually it will
not capture the full density range of the negative, only a partial range
that produces what the software thinks will make the best-looking
print.
These are not decisions you want your software making for you. You
want a scan that contains as much information from the negative as
possible. Linear mode capture usually accomplishes this; it’s intended to
pass on the data collected by the scanner with the minimum amount of
software interpretation. That’s left up to you, as it should be.
If your scanner doesn’t offer a linear mode, and your negative scans
are clipping either the highlight or shadow detail, try scanning the negative as if it were a slide, since scanner software is designed to retain a
greater density range when scanning slides. The image you see on your
screen will then, of course, be a negative, but a simple inversion operation will give you a positive image.
Don’t expect the image you see to look anything like a good photograph. The color will be wrong, the contrast will be flat, and it may
appear much lighter or darker than you would want a good-looking
photograph to be. That’s all correctable. Not correctable are highlights
and shadows that are entirely lost because your software threw away
some of the detail in the photograph.
Using 16-bit scanning mode is less critical for scanning slides if
they’re not severely faded, but it’s still a good idea. A lot can be done to
improve the quality of chromes, especially old ones. The original slide
in Figure 4-29 was a badly scratched Kodachrome that had never been
projected. Kodachrome slides are very stable in the dark. Consequently,
once the scratches were all repaired, the tone and color were in like-new
condition. Typical of slides, it has very contrasty midrange tones and flat
highlights and shadows.
Some photographers intentionally took advantage of the harsh characteristics of their fi lms, but far more often they only tolerated it as the
best that could be done at the time. This may be a look you want to

Scanning Color Film

119

Fig. 4-29 This
Kodachrome slide (top
fi gure) has like-new tone
and color because
Kodachrome is very
stable in the dark and
this slide was rarely, if
ever, projected. That
does not mean it can’t be
improved. I produced the
photograph in the lower
fi gure using Photoshop’s
Shadow/Highlight, Hue/
Saturation, Dodge, and
Burn tools. The bottom
photograph has better
highlight detail and
improved color, and it
shows the mother and
child more clearly and
better focuses the
viewer’s attention on
them.

preserve, but more often than not the client will be thrilled if you can
do something to improve the tonal quality (see Chapter 9, page 335).
Scanning the chrome in 16-bit mode ensures that you have plenty of
well-discriminated tonal information in the highlights and shadows, so
that you won’t see posterization and banding when you improve the
overall contrast characteristics of the photograph.
Faded slides can be particularly tricky to scan. Often one dye layer ✓ HOW TO SCAN VERY
is hardly faded at all, while at the same time there is an overall buildup DENSE OR FADED
COLOR FILM
of stain. The result is that even though the slide looks pale and washed
out to the eye (and sometimes to the scanner’s exposure control), it may
actually have higher-than-normal density in one or more channels.
Despite the best efforts of your scanner, the darker areas in that channel
may go solid “black” in the scan, eliminating any possibility of good color
correction in those portions of the photograph.

120

CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Fig. 4-30 This early
1950s E-1 slide is very
contrasty. Even after
color and tone correction
(shown here) a single 16bit scan can’t encompass
the full range of detail
that was in the slide,
from highlights to
shadows.

HOW TO SCAN VERY
DENSE OR FADED
COLOR FILM
(continued)

Scanning using your fi lm scanner’s 16-bit linear mode may bring in
that extra-high-density data. However, you’ll encounter cases in which
even that won’t be enough (Figure 4-30). When that happens, the
answer is to make two or even three scans at very different exposure
settings and combine them as in Figure 4-31 (Chapter 9, page 316).
Resolution Decisions

HOW TO DETERMINE
WHAT RESOLUTION
TO SCAN AT

Usually you won’t have to scan prints at extremely high resolutions. It’s
rare to fi nd an old print that has 1200-ppi worth of fi ne detail. For 8inch by 10-inch and larger originals there usually won’t be even 600-ppi
worth of detail in the photograph. Often a mere 300-ppi scan can
capture all of the real detail to be had. This is true even of contact prints
from glass plates and large-format fi lm negatives.
✓
If you believe that a particular photo merits a high-resolution scan,
do some test scans of a small section of it at different resolutions: 300,
600, 1200 ppi, and so on (Figure 4-32). Compare the scans on your
monitor at 100% scale, at least. If you fi nd that the pixelation in the
lower resolution scans makes it difficult for you to compare the amount
of image detail with the higher resolution scans, resample all of the fi les
to the same ppi (Figure 4-33). Use this to determine the point where
increasing the scan resolution further doesn’t get you any more picture
detail.

Resolution Decisions

121

Fig. 4-31 You can create an extended-range scan from several individual scans made with different exposures by using Picture
Windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stack Images Transform operation. I used that transform to create the large composite photograph here from the three
individual scans at the top of the fi gure. Compare the vastly improved highlight and shadow detail with that of the photograph
in Figure 4-30.

Fig. 4-32 I scanned a small portion of the snapshot on the left at 300-, 600-, and 1200-ppi resolutions to see how fi ne a scan
was needed to capture all of the detail in the photograph. The 600-ppi scan is a little sharper than the 300-ppi one. The pearls
and the fl owers in the corsage have a little more detail at 600 ppi. There’s no difference between the 600- and 1200-ppi scans.
This tells me that I don’t need to scan this photograph at a higher resolution than 600 ppi.

Fig. 4-33 Here’s how
to resample a lower
resolution scan to higher
resolution when
comparing different
scans, as in Figure 4-32.
The upper control panel
shows the settings for
the 300-ppi scan. To
make it match the 600ppi scan in scale, change
the Resolution to 600
(lower panel) and make
sure that Resample
Image: Bicubic is
selected.

Resolution Decisions

123

Fig. 4-34 Sometimes it’s
a good idea to scan at
very high resolutions.
This photograph is
covered with a network
of fi ne cracks. The 600ppi scan (lower left)
records as much
photographic detail as
the 1200-ppi scan (lower
right), but the cracks are
much sharper and better
defi ned in the 1200-ppi
scan. That will make it
easier to create a mask
that selects just the
cracks for repair (see
Chapter 7).

There’s no harm in scanning at unnecessarily higher resolutions, but
it expands your fi le size dramatically. The size of the image fi le you get
goes up as the square of the scan resolution: A 600-ppi scan will be four
times as large as a 300-ppi scan, and a 1200-ppi scan will be 16 times
as large.
High-resolution scans of low-resolution prints can be useful when
there’s physical damage with sharply defi ned, clear edges (Figure 4-34).
Scanning at higher resolutions spreads out real image detail over many
more pixels, while the edges of damaged areas remain pixel-sharp. This
makes it easier to use edge-fi nding fi lters and similar tools in your image
processing program to extract the boundaries of the damaged areas.
When a damaged region’s edges and the fi nest image details are both
only 1 or 2 pixels wide, it’s hard for software to distinguish between
them. When an edge is 1 or 2 pixels wide while the fi nest photographic
detail is 5 to 10 pixels wide, you can do a pretty good job of masking
that selects for the sharp damage. I apply this technique to the photo in
Figure 4-34 in Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 240.

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CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Masks can be resized the same way image fi les can, so you aren’t
stuck with a monstrous, ultra-high-resolution fi le to work with. If
you need to scan at, say, 2400 ppi to create a good mask, don’t be
afraid to do so. Once you’ve made that mask and saved it, you can
resample both the mask and the image fi le down to something more
workable, like 600 ppi, and perform your restoration on much smaller
fi les.
When you’re scanning fi lm, be aware that scanning usually increases
grain, no matter what type of fi lm was used. That’s because a “grain” in
a digital fi le can be no smaller than a single pixel. Even coarse-grained
B&W fi lm has fi lm grains smaller than most scanners’ pixels. Consequently, grain is magnified in scans. Good software tools exist for reducing the impact of grain (notably DIGITAL GEM, which is part of the
DIGITAL ICE3 software package incorporated in many fi lm scanners and
is also available as a plug-in for Photoshop), but it’s hard to make it go
away entirely. The best way to minimize grain in a digital scan is to scan
at the very highest true (not interpolated) resolution you can. That will
make the grain fi ner and more like it was in the original negative and
more like it would be in a wet darkroom print.
Low-resolution scans don’t solve the grain problem until you get to
very low resolutions. Film grain, unfortunately, acts like random noise,
which means it doesn’t blur out as much as you’d expect when you make
the pixels bigger (for the mathematically inclined, grain contrast only
goes down as the square root of the size of the pixel). Figure 4-35 shows
highly enlarged sections of a photograph scanned, top to bottom, at
4800, 2400, and 1200 ppi. As the resolution drops, the fi lm grain gets
larger and mushier, but it still hasn’t gone away even at 1200 ppi. The
random noise effect of grain leaves its imprint on individual pixels even
after fi ne detail is blurred out.
Putting aside grain problems, the older the original, the less likely
you are to need a high-resolution scan of it. By and large, old-time photographs get their wonderful sharpness and rich tonal qualities from the
large size of the fi lms and plates of the time. However, although old-style
emulsions were often very fi ne grained and sharp, the same cannot be
said for the camera lenses. The techniques of the photographers of the
time didn’t usually lend themselves to ultra-sharp photographs. On
average, a photograph made by a casual 35-mm camera user in the late
20th century has much fi ner detail than a professional photograph made
a century earlier.
One important tip for scanning smaller negatives: Always scan fi lm
in a glass carrier! No glassless flat fi lm carrier made holds the fi lm well
enough to give you an edge-to-edge sharp scan, no matter what the
manufacturers may foist off on you as a standard carrier for your scanner.
Pay for a glass carrier when you buy your scanner, even if it costs you
extra.

Resolution Decisions

Fig. 4-35 Reducing scan resolution is not a good way to suppress noise and grain. This B&W negative was scanned at 4800, 2400, and 1200 ppi (top to bottom). The film grain gets mushier as scan
resolution drops, but it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t go away, and much fi ne detail is lost.

125

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CHAPTER 4 Getting the Photo into the Computer

Rephotography

HOW TO
PHOTOGRAPH
TARNISHED PRINTS

If you’re trying to restore prints that have lots of fi ne cracks or a really
heavy surface texture, you may be better off rephotographing the print
with a good digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. Flat-bed scanners
use highly directional light that accentuates surface flaws and brings out
textures. Defects that are hardly visible under normal diffuse light
viewing can dominate a scan. Taking the more conventional photographic route on a copy stand lets you use all the clever lighting tools
that had been developed over the years for minimizing surface blemishes: light tents, double crossed polarizers, careful off-axis placement of
lamps—the whole bag of tricks. Used properly, this approach can save
you many hours of work on the computer.
Copy photography is a specialized skill that isn’t difficult to learn but
does involve techniques you’re not likely to have encountered while
doing regular photography. In particular, the trick of using crossed
polarizers to suppress textures and reflections is something every good
copy photographer knows, but there’s almost never a reason to have
learned it outside of that discipline.
A good instructional book on copy photography is the 1984 Eastman
Kodak publication Copying and Duplicating in Black-and-White and Color.
An online search will turn up numerous sources for this book. Even
though it’s 20 years old and so is entirely fi lm oriented, it’s timely. Many
of the copying techniques are just as applicable to modern digital photography as they were to fi lm photography. You’ll even see some nice
examples of photo restorations done using film and fi lters instead of
scanners and computers. Be sure to study the section on the use of polarizers carefully.
✓
Prints that have silvered out (developed shiny metallic spots on the
surface) can be difficult to scan because the metallic surface of the print
bounces light directly into the scanner sensor. This is a problem that you
may be able to fi x when you restore the image with some more clever
masking tricks, as in Figure 4-13, but sometimes it’s easier to avoid it in
the fi rst place. Copying that same photograph with crossed polarizers
over the lights and the camera lens suppresses reflections from the
tarnish spots and the paper texture to provide a much cleaner image to
work with (Figure 4-36).
Recapturing a photograph with a camera has two disadvantages. The
fi rst is density range; your digital camera may not capture the full range
of the print in a single exposure. In that case you’ll need to make two
exposures, one for the highlights and one for the shadows, and merge
them in your image processing program (see Chapter 9, page 316). Regardless, you will want to do your captures in 16-bit TIFF or RAW mode.
The other handicap is resolution. Don’t expect digital photography
to be as sharp as scanning. The actual resolving power of most digital
SLRs is in the range of 1500- by 1500-pixels worth of fi ne detail. The

Rephotography

127

Fig. 4-36 The original
photograph on the left
has an intrusive paper
texture and considerable
tarnish. A flat-bed
scanner captures these
flaws along with the
underlying image I want
to restore. I made the
fi gure on the right by
rephotographing the
original print on a copy
stand with a digital
camera. I used two
fl oodlights set at 45degree angles to the
print so the paper texture
wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t cast shadows. I
covered the fl oodlights
and the camera lens with
polarizers rotated at right
angles to each other.
That killed the specular
refl ections from the
tarnish, making them
almost invisible.

most expensive ones get up to more than 3000 by 3000 pixels. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not
talking about the fi le size in pixels but the actual amount of fi ne detail
that is there. Put another way, a sharp 600-ppi scan of a 4-inch by 6inch print will record as much fi ne image detail as even a very good
digital SLR. In many cases, though, the digital photograph will be more
than good enough, especially for the advantages it offers in suppressing
cracks, textures, and silvering out.
Some digital cameras have a problem with lateral chromatic aberration (color fringing toward the edges of the frame). You can fi x that in
Photoshop, but I much prefer Picture Windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tool for correcting this
problem. See Chapter 6, Restoring Color, page 219, for instructions.

This page intentionally left blank

C H A PTE R 5

Restoring Tone
How-To’s in This Chapter
How to evaluate contrast with a histogram
How to change overall brightness and contrast with Curves
How to add contrast to midtones with Curves
How to use sample points with Curves
How to make a print look more brilliant and snappier with Curves
How to lighten or darken a print with Curves
How to bring out shadow tones with Curves
How to improve a copy print with Curves
How to improve snapshots with the Shadow/Highlight adjustment
How to improve a copy print with the Curves and Shadow/Highlight adjustments
How to correct uneven exposure with a Curves adjustment layer
How to do dodging and burning-in with masked Curves adjustment layers
How to scan a nearly blank photograph
How to recover a nearly blank photograph with Curves adjustment layers and
“multiply” blends
How to improve contrast without making colors too saturated
How to fix harsh shadows on faces
How to retouch faces with a masked Curves adjustment layer

What Makes a Good Print?
Let’s talk a bit about what a good print looks like.
The First Rule of Good Tonality is that a good photograph almost
always has a range of tones that run from near-white to near-black. This
is true even of high-key and low-key photographs. This is partly a result
of the inherent nature of real-world subjects, which usually have highlights and shadows, even if they are a very small part of the photograph.
It is also partly a result of the limited exposure range of most photographic fi lms. Whatever the reason, this dictum holds so often that
the exceptions to the rule are, well, exceptional. If you assume the

129

130

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-1 A good-looking B&W photograph almost always has a full range of tones from black to white. The photograph on the
left is too low in contrast; it looks muddy and flat. The photograph on the right has too much contrast; midtones are harsh, and
some important highlight and shadow detail has been pushed to pure blacks and whites. The photograph in the middle is just
right!

HOW TO EVALUATE
CONTRAST WITH A
HISTOGRAM

photograph you are restoring is supposed have a full range of tones, you
will almost never be wrong.
Conversely, a good photograph usually doesn’t have large areas that
are pure white or solid black without there having been a specific aesthetic reason to make it that way. This is not as universal a truth as my
First Rule, but it’s true more often than not.
✓
The classic error that the neophyte printer makes in the darkroom is
getting the overall contrast wrong. Flat prints with muddy blacks and
grayish whites are what I most commonly see. Occasionally someone
will err the other way and produce prints that are way too contrasty,
with lots of solid blacks and pure whites where there should be continuous tone and delicate gradation (Figure 5-1).
That potential for error still exists when printing digitally, but fortunately we have a tool that makes it much easier to tell when we’re going
astray. It’s the histogram (Figure 5-2). A good histogram spans most of
the range of values from black to white. A smattering of pixels may be
pure whites and blacks in the fi nished photograph, but for restoration
work we want to minimize that until we get to the very last stages of
image preparation for printing.
You’ll recall from Chapter 4 (and you’ll see in later examples) that I
strive when scanning a photograph to get tones that fi ll most of the range
of the histogram. I don’t do that just because it maximizes the amount
of data I have to work with in the restoration, although that would be

What Makes a Good Print?

131

Fig. 5-2 These are the histograms of the photographs in Figure 5-1. The low-contrast photograph (left) doesn’t make good use
of the full range of tones available; there’s no data below a value of about 70. The high-contrast photograph (right) has forced a
lot of pixels to pure black or white (values of 0 or 255). Highlight and shadow detail is missing, and the photograph is unattractive.
The middle histogram makes good use of the tonal scale without clipping off highlight or shadow detail.

reason enough. I do it because it also gets me much closer to a photograph with good tonality.
The First Rule is almost an absolute law for original slides and prints
made from slides. Slide fi lm has an extremely short exposure range;
hardly ever do slides lack a true white and a true black somewhere in
the scene. This is usually, but not always, true for color negatives and
prints made from them. Professional portraits may lack a true white and
a true black, especially if they were supposed to be soft “flattering” portraits made with diffusion fi lters. Amateur portraits are a different
matter; the First Rule likely applies. The color print processes were not
as good as today; while fi lms tended to be contrasty, prints were often
low in saturation and lacked a really good black. Almost all color prints
from that era are severely faded and stained.
Many old B&W photographs were not black and white to begin with;
they were brown or sepia in color. But you should treat them as if they
were true B&W. Because of the staining and fading that affl ict old photographs, you will normally eliminate all vestiges of hue during the
restoration process. At the last stage, once the restoration is complete,
you can digitally “tone” the print to give it the hue you want (see
Chapter 11, Printing Tips, page 429).
Moreover, most amateur photographs from the mid-20th century
were terrible prints to begin with. Photofi nishing back then was poor,
and people’s expectations were lower. Well-preserved B&W snapshots
from that era (Figure 5-1, left) are more often gray and white rather
than black and white. Such originals would not qualify as a good photograph by my rules. But we can improve them, unless the goal is a strict
historically accurate restoration. As part of the restoration process, we
can turn those gray-and-white snapshots and prints with washed-out
color into full-toned photographs that will be much more lovely than

132

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-3 Another flat
photograph with grays
where there should be
blacks and whites. The
histogram in Figure 5-4
tells the tale.

the original ever was. It’s always a good idea to check with the client to
make sure this is acceptable; in the majority of cases they will be both
delighted and amazed that you can actually improve on the original.
Now that I’ve laid down some guidelines, how do we get to that
good-looking print? Consider the photograph in Figure 5-3 and its histogram in Figure 5-4. It’s easy to see what needs to be done; the whites
are too dark and the blacks very washed out. The photograph needs to
be brighter and more contrasty overall.
Well, whatever you do don’t use the Brightness/Contrast adjustment
to fi x this! It is the tool of amateurs and is way too blunt an instrument
for doing good work. Furthermore, although I fi nd levels adjustments
useful for controlling the scan quality (see Chapter 4), I don’t make
much use of the Levels tool in Photoshop itself (Figure 5-5). Levels
adjustments lack fi ne control and subtlety; you’re limited to setting the
end points for the pure black and white tones and a single midrange
point that controls how light or dark the middle grays are. Levels definitely improves the photograph (Figure 5-6), but truly fi ne control over
tonal placement isn’t possible with this tool.

What Makes a Good Print?

133

Fig. 5-4 This histogram
shows why the
photograph in Figure 5-3
looks so bad. None of
the tones comes
anywhere close to
black—there is nothing
darker than a dark gray.
At the highlight end of
the scale, the white dress
is being rendered as a
dishwater gray.

Fig. 5-5 Photoshop’s Levels tool can crudely correct the tones and contrast of Figure 5-3. The B&W
sliders are positioned just outside the range of tones portrayed in the photograph. The black slider
is moved in much further than the white slider, so the picture is going to become darker, overall. To
compensate, the midtone gray slider is shifted slightly to the left (a value of 1.06) to brighten up the
middle grays a bit.

Level’s limited flexibility is, in fact, why I like using such adjustments
in my scanner software. As long as I’ve got a good range of values in the
scan, I want the data to be pretty linear and unmassaged. I’d rather do
that work myself and not have it locked into the original scan. Some
plug-ins I use are happier working with linear tones than with heavily
manipulated ones. But what makes Levels just right for scanner settings
makes it mostly wrong for real restoration work. If I’m not recommending
you use the Brightness/Contrast or Levels tools, what’s the alternative?

134

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-6 This is the same
photograph as Figure 5-3
after the Levels settings
in Figure 5-5 are applied.
Levels is not a tool for
making sophisticated
tonal corrections, but it
still produces
photographs with more
natural-looking and
attractive tones and
more normal contrast.

Curves
HOW TO CHANGE
OVERALL
BRIGHTNESS AND
CONTRAST WITH
CURVES

â&#x153;&#x201C;

The Curves tool does everything that the Brightness/Contrast and Levels
tools can do for you, and it does much more. A Brightness tool increase
of +32, for example, becomes this in the Curves tool in Figure 5-7. A
contrast increase of +16 looks like Figure 5-8. The Levels adjustment in
Figure 5-5 is just the same as the Curves adjustment in Figure 5-9.
What makes Curves the tool of choice is that it does so much more.
You can attach a multitude of control points to a curve and shape it your
will. This is the secret to getting good tonality in B&W restoration, and
itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s absolutely essential for color. Careful Curves adjustments in color
(see Chapter 6) are often the only way to produce exactly the right color
corrections. If you want to do great restoration work, you must become
completely comfortable with and master Curves. Read Chapter 10 to see
how much I depend on manipulating Curves to make my color and tone
corrections and even to repair damage.

Curves

135

Fig. 5-7 Curves can do
everything that
Brightness/Contrast and
Levels tools can. This
curve works exactly the
same as a Brightness tool
change of +32. The
whole line has been
raised by 32 points (each
subdivision on the graph
is 64 points).

Fig. 5-8 This curve
corresponds to a Contrast
tool increase of +16. The
black and white end
points of the curve have
been dragged inward,
making the curve
steeper.

Curves are not the only way to manipulate the tonality of a print;
later in this chapter I’ll bring up some very powerful techniques that
don’t depend on the Curves tool at all to greatly improve the tonal qualities of a photograph. But curves are going to end up doing most of your
heavy lifting, tone-wise. All of the clever tricks in this book won’t get
you a good restoration without the assistance of Curves. Contrariwise,

136

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-9 This curve has
precisely the same effect
as the Levels tool in
Figure 5-5. The black and
white end points of the
curve are dragged in to
match the positions of
the black and white
sliders in the Levels tool.
The midpoint of the
curve is moved slightly
upward to make the
middle grays lighter.

HOW TO ADD
CONTRAST TO
MIDTONES WITH
CURVES

as Example 3 in Chapter 10 demonstrates, you can use primitive tools
and ancient software and do fabulous restoration work if you know how
to bend (literally!) those curves to your will. Consequently, I spend most
of this chapter talking about ways to use Curves to improve tonality. I
appreciate that many newcomers to the world of digital work fi nd Curves
a tough row to hoe, so I’ll take some time to get you more comfortable
with this tool.
✓
As an example of the power of Curves, the simple S-shaped curve in
Figure 5-10 markedly increases midrange contrast and the overall sense
of brightness and contrast. It turns Figure 5-11 into Figure 5-12 without
altering the values rendered as pure whites and pure blacks. This scan
started out with pretty good whites and blacks. Had I tried to achieve
the same level of tonal improvement with the Levels or (worst of all)
Brightness/Contrast tool, I would have clipped some of the highlight or
shadow tones and entirely eliminated that detail from the photograph
(Figures 5-13 and 5-14).
Although the woman looks almost identical in Figures 5-12 and 5-14,
Curves retains delicate highlight detail in the water and the background
that cruder tools wipe out. This one set of tone corrections is enough to
make a very satisfactory restoration.
Obviously curves are potent tools. As you’ll see in the rest of this
book, I use them more often than any other adjustment, by themselves,
in adjustment layers, and in combination with masks. Unfortunately,
many photographers understandably have trouble warming up to the

Curves

137

Fig. 5-10 A curve like
this one substantially
increases contrast and
sparkle in midtones
without throwing away
any highlight or shadow
detail. Highlights are
lightened and shadows
are darkened, but since
the end points of the
curve remain at 0 and
255, the total tonal range
is unchanged.

Fig. 5-11 This
photograph has a full
range of tones from black
to white, but it looks dull
and lifeless because
there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t much contrast
to the midtones. Midtone
contrast is what puts
â&#x20AC;&#x153;snapâ&#x20AC;? in a print. The
curve in Figure 5-10 can
fi x this problem.

138

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-12 This is what
Figure 5-11 becomes
after applying the curve
in Figure 5-10. The
extreme white and black
points haven’t changed,
but the photograph looks
brighter and more alive
and contrasty as a result
of using that S-shaped
curve.

Fig. 5-13 The Levels tool
can simulate the tonal
changes produced by the
curve in Figure 5-10 for
the midrange tones, but
it can only do this by
sacrifi cing highlight and
shadow detail. Curves is
a much better tool for
doing sophisticated
adjustments of tonality
than Levels.

Curves tool. Relating levels of brightness in a photograph to numbers on
a graph doesn’t always come naturally.
HOW TO USE SAMPLE ✓
Photoshop includes several features that help to make this less forbidPOINTS WITH CURVES ding. When a Curves window is open, clicking the cursor (now an eyedropper) anywhere on the photograph places an open-circle indicator
on the curve at the tonal value of that point in the photograph (Figure
5-15). Numerical readouts below the graph report what the exact value
is at that point (Input) and what it will change to when the curve is

Curves

139

Fig. 5-14 This is the
result of applying the
Levels adjustment in
Figure 5-13 to Figure 511. Compare this to
Figure 5-12, which was
created using Curves. The
midtones are not much
different in the two
photographs, but the
Levels-adjusted
photograph, here, has
lost highlight detail in
the water and shadow
detail in the rocks. The
seated woman looks
similar in both
photographs, but the
background looks much
harsher in this one.

Fig. 5-15 Use the cursor to match tones in a photograph with points on the Curves tool. In this
fi gure, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sampling the water in the background by clicking the cursor (the eyedropper in the oval)
on the photo. That creates a corresponding circle in the Curves panel (right) whose input value
matches the tone in the photograph. The Input readout at the bottom of the Curves panel says that
this point has a tonal value of 165. The Output readout reports that this will become a lighter value
of 188 when the curve is applied to the photograph.

140

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

HOW TO USE SAMPLE
POINTS WITH CURVES
(continued)

HOW TO MAKE A
PRINT LOOK MORE
BRILLIANT AND
SNAPPIER WITH
CURVES

HOW TO LIGHTEN OR
DARKEN A PRINT
WITH CURVES

applied (Output). You can move the cursor around with the Shift key
held down and watch the indicator slide up and down the curve and the
numbers change as you pass over bright and dark parts of the photograph. This is a good way to learn how the tones in the photograph correspond to values on the curve. Photoshop’s Info window, shown in
Figure 5-16, will also tell you the numerical values for the photograph
under your cursor; that data’s available with any tool, not just when you
have Curves opened up.
You can set adjustment points on the curve by control-clicking on
the tone in the photograph that you want to modify. Once you set a
point, you can drag it up or down and to the left or right to alter the
tones. That way you don’t have to guess what value that tone corresponds to on the curve or pay attention to the numerical values.
Once you get comfortable with the numbers, you can use the eyedropper tool to monitor several different points in the photograph while
working on it. If you shift-click on a point in the photograph with the
eyedropper, it adds a readout point to the photograph; the numerical
values for that point appear in the Info window (Figure 5-16). You can
place up to four separate readouts in the photograph that will always
tell you what the values are at those points, regardless of where your
cursor is or what you’re doing.
Learn to use of all these tricks; it will help you internalize the relationship between numerical values and tones in the image. The more
that becomes instinctive to you, the easier you will fi nd Curves.
Let’s now turn to some more basic curve manipulations that you’ll
use to improve the tonality in a photograph. Usually you’ll use them in
combination; think of them as individual seasonings you might add to
a dish in different combinations to give it exactly the flavor you want.
✓
As with Figure 5-11, you can do a lot with Curves to change the
tonality of a print without throwing away any of the highlight or shadow
detail. The sense of brilliance in a photograph is primarily controlled by
the contrast in the midtones. You can have two photographs that encompass exactly the same range of tones from white to black (Figure 5-17),
but one has a lot more “snap” than the other. The difference lies in the
shape of the curves. Making the curve slightly S-shaped increases the
contrast in the middle tones and adds brilliance (Figure 5-18), although
if you take it too far it will make a photograph look harsh. You’ll use
this kind of adjustment frequently in restorations. It keeps your fi nal
prints from having that flat, “this is a copy” look. A really good restoration doesn’t look like a copy; it looks like an original photograph.
✓
Adding a single midpoint to a curve and raising or lowering it, as in
Figure 5-19, will alter the overall brightness or darkness of the photograph. This also doesn’t change the black or white points (Figure 5-20).
It does substantially alter the contrast in the highlights and the shadows.
Raising the midpoint compresses the highlights, lowering their contrast
and tonal separation. At the same time it increases shadow contrast and

Curves

141

Fig. 5-16 To monitor the values at several points in a photograph, shift-click the Eyedropper tool on
the photograph. That will create new RGB readouts in the Info window (upper right). I’ve placed
four monitoring points in the photograph—in the woman’s hair, on her neck, in the water, and in
the sky. Those readouts will report the effects of Curves and other adjustments on those points no
matter where I move the cursor. Each readout is showing the tonal values at its corresponding point
in the original photograph and what those values will become after the Curves adjustment at the
lower right.

Fig. 5-17 These two
photographs contained
exactly the same total
range of tones; the tones
are just distributed a
little differently between
them. The photograph on
the right looks more
brilliant and contrasty
because of the
application of the Curves
settings in Figure 5-18.

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CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-18 This curve
changes the photograph
on the left in Figure 5-17
into the photo on the
right. Notice that there’s
no change in the black
and white end points, so
the total tonal range
portrayed in the two
photographs is the same.
I’ve added control points
at the values 64 and 192
and adjusted those to
reduce contrast a little
bit in the highlights and
shadows and increase
contrast by about 20% in
the midtones. What a
difference that makes!

Fig. 5-19 Curves like these don’t change the overall contrast or tonal range of a photograph, but
they make it look markedly lighter or darker. Raising the midpoint of the curve (left) produces a much
lighter, more open-looking photograph. Dropping the midpoint (right) makes the photograph darker
and more somber in appearance. Figure 5-20 shows how both of these curves affect the original
photograph in Figure 5-17.
HOW TO LIGHTEN OR
DARKEN A PRINT
WITH CURVES
(continued)

makes those tones more clearly visible and distinguishable. Lowering
the midpoint has exactly the opposite effect, increasing highlight contrast at the expense of shadow separation.
Sometimes you will want to change the black or white points. Remember how I told you to pull back a little bit on the scan and not make it
too contrasty so you didn’t accidentally clip off tones? That means that
initially your blacks won’t really be black but will be a very, very dark

Curves

143

Fig. 5-20 The left
photograph in this fi gure
takes the leftmost
photograph from Figure
5-17 and modifi es it
using the Curves settings
in Figure 5-19, left. This
opens up midtones and
creates a more light, airy
feel. Applying the Curves
from Figure 5-19, right,
instead increases the
drama of the photograph
on the right and gives it
a more intense and
“theatrical” look.

Fig. 5-21 The
photograph on the left is
too dark and too dull.
The Curves adjustment in
Figure 5-22 turned it into
the photograph on the
right. The histograms for
the before and after
photographs are also
shown in Figure 5-22, on
the right.

gray, and your whites will be fogged (Figure 5-21). At some point in the
restoration process you’ll fi x them to place the “blacks” and “whites”
exactly where you want them to be for a good-looking print. Curves can
take care of that (Figure 5-22).
Sneak up on those end points cautiously. You don’t want to throw
away highlight or shadow detail that you’ll need later. It’s best to leave

144

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-22 This Curves adjustment increases both contrast and brightness. Moving the end points of
the curve in raises the contrast. Adjusting those so that the midpoint of the curve is above the center
point of the graph makes the photo lighter. This produces exactly the same result as could be obtained
with a combination of Brightness and Levels tools. The histograms on the right represent the photograph before and after applying this Curves adjustment. The adjusted photograph makes much better
use of the available tonal range than the unadjusted one.

HOW TO BRING OUT
SHADOW TONES
WITH CURVES

HOW TO IMPROVE A
COPY PRINT WITH
CURVES

the photograph a little too flat and grayish up until just before you want
to print it out. Then you can adjust the end points of the curve to place
the black and white values exactly where they need to be to give you a
full-range print.
✓
Many faded prints have very poor contrast in the shadows. Even
when you restore the overall contrast range of the print you may not
have a good tonal separation in the darker areas. The curve in Figure
5-23 fi xes that. I restricted the lightening effect by adding adjustment
points along the curve to keep it from arcing upward overall, as did the
curve in Figure 5-19, left. Locking down values near the highlights
ensured that they didn’t lose any contrast at all. It increases the contrast
a lot in the shadows and sacrifices a little contrast in the other tones. It
also makes the prints somewhat lighter overall (Figure 5-24).
✓
Heavily stained and copy prints (Figure 5-25) usually have poor
highlight tone separation (you’ll also see that in a very severely faded
photograph). The curve in Figure 5-26 takes care of those problems. I’ve
also applied other control points a la Figure 5-23 so that the rest of the

The Shadow/Highlight Adjustment

145

Fig. 5-23 This Curves
adjustment greatly
increases the contrast in
the deepest shadows and
lightens them up to bring
out more detail, as
shown in Figure 5-24. It
does not affect the tonal
range of the print, its
overall contrast, or the
brightness of the
highlights. Note the
multiple control points in
the middle of the curve
that keep the midtones
and highlights close to
their original values.

photograph doesn’t become too much darker. I’ve darkened the middlehighlight tones considerably and at the same time dragged in the white
point to restore the sparkle to the whites. The result is livelier and looks
more like an original than a copy print.
Now that we’ve covered some of the basic moves with Curves, let’s
look at some nifty tricks for improving tone. There’s a lot more I can do
to improve this copy photograph, and I cover that on page 151. First, I
want to introduce a very powerful Photoshop tool for improving
tonality.
The Shadow/Highlight Adjustment
This may well be the most underrated feature in Photoshop. The Shadow/
Highlight adjustment is an amazing (and complicated) control that
improves the contrast and visibility of detail in both highlights and
shadows. What makes it amazing is that it can do that without destroying midtone contrast.
Problems can arise when you want to improve both shadows and
highlights at the same time. You’d do that with a curve like the one
shown in Figure 5-27. This kind of curve shape, called a “reverse-S,”
expands the contrast in the highlights and shadows but compresses tones
and contrast in the midrange.
Subtle adjustments like this work well. I used a much less aggressive
version of this kind of curve to improve Figure 1-2. That photograph

HOW TO IMPROVE A
COPY PRINT WITH
CURVES (continued)

146

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-24 The original
photograph (top) has a
lot of important subject
detail buried in the
shadows. The middle-todark tones are a little too
contrasty; this is most
obvious in the subjectsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;
faces. The Curves
adjustment in Figure 5-23
created the lower
photograph. A lot more
shadow detail is visible,
and contrast in the
darker midtones is
greatly improved.

is typical of amateur photographs; thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of midrange contrast,
and the tones in the highlights and the shadows are pushed toward
black and white. Consequently, highlight and shadow detail is obscured.
Almost every amateur photograph suffers this to some degree; somewhat blown-out highlights and blocked-up shadows are practically hallmarks of the snapshot.

The Shadow/Highlight Adjustment

147

Fig. 5-25 Copy prints, like
the upper photograph,
usually have flat, dull
highlights, with poor
contrast and grayish whites.
The Curves adjustment in
Figure 5-26 improves these
quite a bit (bottom
photograph).

Copy photographs also have especially bad tonal separation in the
highlights and shadows, where the contrast will be extremely low. It
may take strong changes to bring out good shadow and highlight detail.
But strong changes like those of Figure 5-27 donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t usually produce
attractive results. The midtones become so compressed and low in contrast that the print looks flat and lifeless.
By way of example, I applied this Curves adjustment to the slide
restoration I did in Example 4 of Chapter 10. When I did that restoration,
I chose not to change the overall tonality of the photograph because I
wanted to preserve the original â&#x20AC;&#x153;amateurâ&#x20AC;? quality of on-camera flash in

148

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-26 This curve
increases contrast in the
highlights and restores
the whites, without
having much effect on
the midtones and
shadows. As with Figure
5-23, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve used multiple
control points to
minimize changes to
those tones (in the
shadows) that I want
unchanged.

Fig. 5-27 This Curves
adjustments doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t alter
the total tonal range of
the photo, but it
increases contrast and
separation in both the
highlights and the
shadows at the same
time. In consequence,
midtone contrast is
reduced. That can make
a print look lifeless, as
shown in Figure 5-28, so
use adjustments like this
carefully.

The Shadow/Highlight Adjustment

149

Fig. 5-28 This fi gure shows how the reverse-S Curves adjustment in Figure 5-27 and the Shadow/Highlight tool improve shadow
and highlight detail. The photograph on the left is the unaltered version. The photograph in the middle shows the effect of the
Curves adjustment. You see better detail in the highlights and shadows, but the midtones look unnaturally flat. The Shadow/Highlight adjustment from Figure 5-29 does a much better job of bringing in highlight and shadow detail without ruining the midtones
(right).

the 1950s (Figure 5-28, left). That was an artistic choice and a completely
arbitrary one; I could have just as well decided to give the photograph
a more professional look. That would require toning the harsh highlights
down and bringing out the details that were lost in the shadows. Curves
can do that (Figure 5-28, middle), but look at what happens to the midtones, most obviously in the tablecloth and in the people’s faces. They
look very flat and artificial, as if someone just painted the tones and
colors onto the photograph.
Figure 5-28, right, shows what miracles Shadow/Highlight can work.
The highlights have more details, and the shadows are more open with
better color and saturation than in the Curves-altered version, without
destroying the midtones. The faces and the tablecloth look just as lifelike
and natural as they did in the original version, yet somehow the overall
contrast of the photographs is moderated. It almost looks like it was lit
professionally.
The Shadow/Highlight adjustment can do this because it doesn’t
blindly apply curves changes to the entire photograph. It analyzes the
tones present in the photograph and selectively works on areas of highlights and of shadows but leaves midtone areas alone. Figure 5-29 shows
the adjustment with the settings I used. Separate sets of sliders are used
for adjusting the shadows, adjusting the highlights, and maintaining
midtone contrast and color saturation.
As I said, this is a complicated control. I’ll describe what the sliders
do in the next several paragraphs, but don’t be surprised if this description is very confusing. The way to understand what this tool does is to
play with it and look at how the preview changes when you move the
sliders around. The explanation I’ll provide will help you figure out why

150

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-29 Photoshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Shadow/Highlight tool
does an excellent job of
improving tones and
enhancing detail in
highlights and shadows,
almost like dodging and
burning in a print in the
darkroom. This
adjustment was applied
to the photograph in
Figure 5-28, right. See
the main text for an
explanation of what the
different control settings
do.

moving a slider has the effect it does, but messing around with this
adjustment on your computer is the only way to understand it.
Starting at the top of the Shadows section, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a slider for Amount.
That controls the strength of the adjustment, with 0% being no effect
on the shadows at all. In this case I applied a moderate 33% effect to
bring out the background detail. The next slider, Tonal Width, controls
the range of tones over which the effect is applied. Set it near 0%, and
only the tones very close to the darkest ones will be affected. Set it near
100%, and almost all the tones in the photograph will be lightened.
The last Shadows slider, Radius, controls how wide an area the
adjustment samples to determine what range of tones to correct. This
is the part that is smart enough to figure out how to leave the midtones alone. The adjustment takes into account all the tones within a
radius to fi nd out which ones are the shadow tones that should be
adjusted.
The Highlights sliders work the same way. The only difference is that
the highlight tone width is measured starting from white and working
down, instead of from black and working up. Most often youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll apply
only a very small amount of highlight correction. The 13% I used results
in a pretty potent effect.

How to Improve a Copy Print

151

Fig. 5-30 Amateur
snapshots are often
contrasty, with poor
detail in the highlights
and shadows. The
Shadow/Highlight
adjustment from Figure
5-31 greatly improves
this photo’s tonality
(right).

The last set of controls ensures that the shadow and highlight adjustments don’t make the image look too dull. The Color Correction slider
controls the saturation in the areas being altered. It doesn’t have any
effect if you’re working on a B&W photograph. Midtone Contrast does
about what you’d think—it’s a way to control how snappy the print looks
in the midrange. To some degree, it counteracts the effect of the Shadows
and Highlights adjustments, so use it sparingly. If you get good at setting
the Shadows and Highlights sliders, you’ll need to make only very slight
midtone contrast corrections. The Midtone Contrast slider is very useful
for fi ne-tuning the look of the photograph after you’ve set the shadow
and highlight corrections.
Figure 5-30 shows a more typical use for the Shadow/Highlight ✓ HOW TO IMPROVE
adjustment to correct this snapshot from 1970. The settings I used are SNAPSHOTS WITH
THE SHADOW/
shown in Figure 5-31; I circled the three settings that are different from HIGHLIGHT
Photoshop’s default settings. Because I was primarily interested in ADJUSTMENT
improving the highlight detail, I pulled back the shadow amount to 17%
and turned the highlight amount up to 15%. I boosted the contrast in
the midtones by nine points so they have a little more clarity. That’s how
little it took to produce the marked improvement you can see in this
photograph. This level of improvement in family snapshots would make
many clients very happy.
How to Improve a Copy Print
Let’s return to the copy photograph from Figure 5-25, reproduced in
Figure 5-32a. Ignoring the matter of repairing the physical damage, what
will most improve this photograph? The histogram in Figure 5-33 shows
that the print lacks good whites and blacks. Looking at the print itself,
it’s very clear that tonal separation is weak in both the highlights and
the shadows.

152

CHAPTER 5

Fig. 5-31 This Shadow/
Highlight adjustment was
used to improve the
photograph in Figure 530. All of the control
settings are the default
ones except for those
that are circled. Their
function is explained in
the main text.

Fig. 5-32 There are
several ways to improve
a copy photograph, like
the one in fi gure (a). You
can use Curves (b), the
Shadows/Highlight tool
(c), or a combination of
the two (d). My personal
favorite is (d), but theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re
all good.

Restoring Tone

How to Improve a Copy Print

153

Fig. 5-33 This is the
histogram for Figure 532a. The blacks should
be a little darker, and
there’s a very
pronounced lack of bright
highlight detail.

Fig. 5-34 This Curves
adjustments produced
Figure 5-32b. I pulled in
the end points of the
curve to make the blacks
blacker and the whites
whiter, increasing the
overall contrast of the
photograph. The two
other control points on
the curve increase the
contrast of the highlight
and shadow detail at the
same time that they
bring the midrange
contrast back to normal.
This curve adds a lot of
tonal separation to the
highlights and shadows
without making the print
look too harsh overall.

The curve in Figure 5-34 is the most straightforward fi x. I’ve pulled ✓ HOW TO IMPROVE A
PRINT WITH
in the white and black points so that the photograph has some true COPY
THE CURVES AND
whites and blacks. Then I added control points that gave the curve a SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT
reverse-S shape that increased contrast in the highlights and shadows ADJUSTMENTS
in exchange for some midtone contrast. That produced Figure 5-32b,
which is much improved over the original. Still, I wouldn’t mind opening
up the shadows more and restoring some of the lost midtone contrast.

154

CHAPTER 5

Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-35 This Shadow/
Highlight adjustment
produced Figure 5-32c.
The overall tonality is not
a lot different, but
there’s a better sense of
separation and detail
throughout the tonal
range, even in the
midtones. Note the hefty
boost to Midtone
Contrast (+28 points) in
the control settings;
that’s what keeps the
snap in the midtones.

HOW TO IMPROVE A
COPY PRINT WITH
THE CURVES AND
SHADOW/HIGHLIGHT
ADJUSTMENTS
(continued)

That’s a job for the Shadow/Highlight adjustment (Figure 5-35). I
throttled back the shadow amount to 20%, added a 6% highlight amount
to keep them from getting blown out, and increased the midtone contrast
by a substantial 28 points. That took me to Figure 5-32c.
There are ways in which I like that a lot better, but overall the
photograph now feels “busy” to me; it has lost too much visual focus.
Maybe I did too good a job of equalizing contrast over the entire
tonal range. So I tried a less aggressive tack for equalizing contrast.
Starting with the original, I applied the curves from Figure 5-36.
This is just a straight overall contrast increase; I pulled in the white
and black points to increase the density range in the photograph, but
I didn’t reshape the curve to alter the relative contrast of the highlights,
midtones, and shadows. Then I applied the Shadow/Highlight adjustment shown in Figure 5-37. This opened up the shadows and toned
down highlights just a little bit. Since I hadn’t flattened out the midtones
with the curves, I didn’t need to increase their contrast very much.
The result is Figure 5-32d. Personally, this is my favorite of the
three improved versions. There’s room for further refi nements, but for
many clients, you could stop right here; this is a good-looking
photograph.

How to Improve a Copy Print

155

Fig. 5-36 I applied this
Curves adjustment to
Figure 5-32a as the fi rst
stage in producing Figure
5-32d. This curve causes
a modest contrast
increase and makes the
blacks a little darker and
the highlights a little
whiter.

Fig. 5-37 This Shadow/
Highlight adjustment
takes the photograph
that resulted from the
Curves adjustments made
by Figure 5-36 and yields
Figure 5-32d. Notice that
thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only a slight
Midtone Contrast
increase; thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because
the previous Curves
adjustment took care of
most of the overall
contrast change needed.
The Shadow/Highlight
adjustment kicks up the
detail in the highlights
and shadows just enough
to make the resulting
photograph look like an
original print instead of a
copy print.

156

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-38 This
photograph is an
amateur blunder: The
camera’s flash sync was
incorrect, so only the
right side of the
photograph got a full
flash exposure. I can fi x
this with a masked
Curves adjustment layer.

Why did I bother including the other two versions if this is the one
I like best? Because, they’re all good; they just appeal to different tastes.
This harks back to points I made in Chapter 1. First, good restoration is
about art and aesthetics, about constructing the image that looks like a
good photograph to you, not just mechanically correcting errors. Second,
there’s value in playing around. Trying out different settings and controls to see what they get you is the best way to get to the photograph
you really like. Single-mindedness is not a virtue.
How to Correct Uneven Exposure

HOW TO CORRECT
UNEVEN EXPOSURE
WITH A CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYER

The photograph in Figure 5-38 is not badly faded, but it was very badly
made! Aside from the usual low-contrast printing typical of B&W photofi nishing in the mid-20th century, it was improperly exposed. The
flash sync on the camera was set incorrectly, so only the right side of
the picture got good flash exposure.
The easiest and best way to correct uneven exposure like this is with
✓
a Curves adjustment layer combined with a mask to control what parts
of the picture are altered. You create an adjustment layer by going to the
Layer menu, selecting “New Adjustment Layer” from the drop-down
menu, and picking the kind of layer you want to create (Curves, in this
case).
While creating the Curves adjustment layer, I didn’t make any curve
changes. When the Curves tool opened up, I merely clicked “OK.” I did
that because I wanted to fi rst create a mask for that layer so that the
properly exposed part of the picture wouldn’t be changed. That way,
when I experiment with different curve settings to correct the left side
of the photograph I can see how well I’m matching the right side.
I set my foreground and background colors to white and black and
selected the Gradient tool (Figure 5-39). I chose “Foreground to Back-

How to Correct Uneven Exposure

157

Fig. 5-39 Making a
gradient mask for the
adjustment layer for
Figure 5-38 isn’t diffi cult.
Set the foreground and
background colors to
white and black, select
“Foreground to
Background” from the
gradient options, and
draw a line with the
gradient tool across the
photograph from where
you want the gradient to
start to where you want
it to end (Figure 5-40).

ground” as the gradient type, made sure that the linear gradient button
was pressed, and left the mode normal and the opacity 100%. I created
the gradient by drawing a horizontal gradient line from right to left,
starting under the baby girl’s nose and extending almost to the boy’s
arm. That was my best guess of where the exposure fall-off began and
ended (Figure 5-40). The black area on the right side of the gradient is
completely masked off; there the adjustment layer has no effect. As the
gradient fades to white, the effect of the adjustment layer increases until
it becomes 100% for the left portion of the picture.
The advantage of doing this with an adjustment layer and a mask is
that I don’t have to get this correct on the first try; I just have to make
a usefully close guess. If I discover that this won’t give me the uniform
exposure correction I’m after, I can modify or replace the gradient in
the Curves mask channel. Now I’m ready to correct the exposure.
I didn’t do anything fancy to come up with the adjustment layer’s
curve in Figure 5-41. I just moved in the white point until the highlights
looked about the same on both sides of the photograph in the preview.
Then I dragged in the black point until the shadows looked similarly
dark. That left the midtones on the left side a little too dark, so I added

HOW TO CORRECT
UNEVEN EXPOSURE
WITH A CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYER
(continued)

158

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-40 I estimate that
the flash fade-out starts
just under the littlest
girl’s nose and ends on
the right side of the older
girl. Drawing a line with
the gradient tool from
left to right between
those points produces
the gradient mask shown
underneath the
photograph.

HOW TO CORRECT
UNEVEN EXPOSURE
WITH A CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYER
(continued)

a center point to the curve and raised it up a bit to lighten those tones
so that they matched on both sides of the photograph.
Figure 5-42 shows the results of my efforts. My fi rst attempt at a
gradient mask turned out to be pretty good. There’s a slightly darkened
band between the two girls where the Curves adjustment wasn’t
quite strong enough. I fi xed that by lightening up the mask along a
vertical band in that area. I just painted a stripe down the mask with a
wide-radius white airbrush set to 5% opacity, nothing fancier than
that.

How to Correct Uneven Exposure

159

Fig. 5-41 This
adjustment layer curve
turns Figure 5-38 into
Figure 5-42. It greatly
increases the contrast in
the underexposed parts
of the photograph and
changes the dim grays
into light highlights.

Fig. 5-42 Here’s Figure
5-38 after I’ve added the
masked Curves
adjustment layer to it.
The illumination is much
more even; there is still a
bit of a darker band
between the two girls.

It was only a slight correction; Figure 5-43 shows the original gradient mask in the top half and the airbrushed mask in the bottom half.
The alteration is so subtle, in fact, that I’m not attempting to reproduce
the difference it made to the photograph in the pages of this book. I
bring it up only to illustrate the level of refi nement that’s easily achievable when you use these kinds of masks.
Figure 5-42 isn’t anywhere close to being a fi nished restoration.
Overall the tonality is bad and the huge contrast increase I did to the
left side of the photograph enhanced defects like paper texture and

160

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-43 Masks are
modifiable! To get rid of
the dark band between
the two girls in Figure 542, I dodged the mask to
lighten it up in that
region. That increased
the strength of the
adjustment layer there,
which eliminated the
dark band.

cracks. Considerable work would be needed to turn this into a good
restoration, but evening out the exposure was the critical fi rst step.
By the way, this is a good example of a photograph that must be
scanned in 16-bit mode. The contrast adjustment I made to the left side
of the photograph threw away almost two-thirds of the value range.
Expanding an 8-bit image’s contrast by a factor of three would produce
very visible and unacceptable contours.
Repairing Uneven Density: Dodge and Burn with Masked
Adjustment Layers
It’s not much of a conceptual leap from using gradient masks to control
local photograph densities to using any kind of mask, including handpainted ones.
Hand-painted masks are uniquely valuable because they let you apply
correction effects exactly where you want them. The effect can be as
broad as half a photograph or as narrow as a single pixel; it’s just a matter
of what radius brush you use to paint the mask with.
You can apply any kind of Curves alteration you want this way, but
I’m going to concentrate on the two most useful ones. I call them
“dodging” and “burning-in” masks (and layers) because they produce
effects a lot like those of dodging and burning-in when doing darkroom
printing. Unlike darkroom printing, however, you can have as many
different dodge and burn-in effects going on as you want by creating a
new adjustment layer for each particular flavor of alteration you want
to make.
Even better, any dodging or burning-in you do is reversible. If you
fi nd you’ve overdone the correction at some point, just paint over that
part of the mask with a black brush to reduce or eliminate the change
there. In other words, this requires no painterly skills. The better you

Fig. 5-44 Figure (a) shows a scan of a poor photograph I received from a client. The original negative suffered from some light leaks during exposure, so this photograph has large washed-out spots
in the lower half that reduce contrast and ruin the shadows. Dodging and burning-in Curves adjustment layers, explained in the main text, are the keys to repairing this damage. Figure (b) was created
by a burn-in adjustment layer that used the Curves and mask shown in Figures 5-45 and 5-46,
respectively. Figure (c) added a second burn-in adjustment layer that used Figures 5-47 and 5-48.
Figure (d) incorporated a dodging adjustment layer using Figures 5-49 and 5-50.

are with wielding a (digital) brush, the more efficiently you’ll be able to
do this, but you can erase or rework any mistakes you make, so you’ll
always be able to get there bit by refi ned bit.
Good dodging and burning-in curves are hugely exaggerated versions
of the kinds of basic curve corrections I talked about earlier in this
chapter. They’re intentionally super-strong so that you can paint them
into the layer mask with a low-opacity brush, building up the changes
you want stroke by stroke in a controllable way.
The photograph in Figure 5-44a is a good candidate for burning-in ✓ HOW TO DO
and dodging. The original negative was apparently light-fogged. Large DODGING AND
BURNING-IN WITH
parts of the lower half of the photograph are washed out and pale, MASKED CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
although low-contrast detail is visible in those areas.
For the fi rst round of repairs on this image I created a Curves adjustment layer with the curve shown in Figure 5-45. This extreme correction greatly increases the contrast and density of any tones below light
gray. I designed this curve to produce such a strong change that it could
fi x the flare problem in all but the worst spots. It doesn’t matter that it’s
too strong for most of the photograph because I’ll be painting in the
adjustment only where I want it at the strength I want.

162

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-45 This Curves
adjustment has little
effect on the highlights
but substantially darkens
everything else. It’s
strong enough to correct
the near-worst of the
flare when applied at
100%.

Fig. 5-46 This is what
the burn-in mask looks
like for the Curves
adjustment layer I
created from Figure 5-45.
It eliminates almost all of
the flare on the left and
about half the flare on
the right in Figure 5-44b.

HOW TO DO
DODGING AND
BURNING-IN WITH
MASKED CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
(continued)

Next, I inverted the layer mask to make it black instead of white. I
selected the Brush tool and gave it a radius about two-thirds the size of
the largest areas I wanted to burn in. I set the opacity of the brush to
12%; I’ve found that values between 8% and 15% work best for doing
dodging or burning-in. I did not turn on the mask layer visibility. There’s
no need to see what the mask layer looks like, only the effect of the
brush on the photograph.
I made a couple of passes at the mask layer with the large-radius
brush to dampen the overall flare. Then I switched to a smaller radius
brush and started fi lling in the places the large radius brush had missed.

When that was close to correct, I switched to an even smaller radius
brush to touch up the areas that still needed to be toned down. If I went
too far and made an area too dark, I switched the brush from white to
black and painted some of the mask back in to reduce the overadjustment
in that area.
I fi nd that working back and forth between black and white brushes
like this and shrinking the radius of the brush as I refi ne the adjustments
is a very efficient way to do this kind of painting. I think this is just my
style, though. If you want to take a different approach to painting in the
mask, do whatever feels most comfortable and efficient for you.
Only a few minutes’ work got the photograph to Figure 5-44b. The
burn-in mask is shown in Figure 5-46. It looks strange, doesn’t it! Still,
it does the job and does it well.
I created a second burn-in adjustment layer to deal with the flare
patches that the fi rst layer didn’t entirely fi x, mainly a flare spot at the
lower right corner of the photograph. I assigned that layer the curve in
Figure 5-47. It darkens most of the tones but also greatly increases contrast in the lighter areas, so it could make the flare spots both darker
and more contrasty and even improve the whites a bit. The burn-in mask
in Figure 5-48 got me to Figure 5-44c.
Next, I needed to do some dodging along the lower edge of the photograph where there was a very dark strip. I created a third adjustment
layer with the curve in Figure 5-49. This curve leaves the black point
unchanged but extremely lightens everything else. When I was done
dodging the dark areas that needed correction, shown in the mask in
Figure 5-50, I had Figure 5-44d.
That fi nished the technical correction I set out to make. I still saw
room for improvement. Dodging and burning-in layers are useful for
artistic work as well, just as dodging and burning-in in the darkroom
are. They’re a much better tool for artistic control than the simple, crude
Dodge and Burn tools built into Photoshop, as my fi nal corrections
demonstrate.
In Figure 5-44d, I felt that several of the faces and the white clothing
were too washed out. I wanted to increase their contrast and make them
darker, but I didn’t want the highlights to go gray. In fact, I wanted the
highlights to be a little brighter.
I created my fi nal masked correction layer with the curve in Figure
5-51. Although I instinctively tend to think of this as burning-in, because
overall it makes the faces look darker, it really is unlike ordinary burningin. Most of the tones are darkened, it’s true, but the near-whites are
substantially brightened because I dragged the white point in from
a value of 255 to 227. So, at the same time that I’m burning in the
highlights, I’m also improving their contrast and preserving whites.
That’s impossible to do with the Photoshop Burn tool; its midtone range
setting has little effect on highlights, and the highlight setting grays out
everything, including whites.

163

HOW TO DO
DODGING AND
BURNING-IN WITH
MASKED CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
(continued)

164

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-47 This is the
Curves adjustment for
the second burn-in layer.
It works much like the
fi rst burn-in layer, except
that the lighter tones
have been pushed toward
white to increase the
contrast everywhere in
the tonal scale.

Fig. 5-48 This burn-in
mask uses the Curves
adjustment in Fig. 5-47
to produce Figure 5-44c.
It corrects the flare and
light leaks that remained
after applying the fi rst
burn-in layer.

HOW TO DO
DODGING AND
BURNING-IN WITH
MASKED CURVES
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
(continued)

After another few minutesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; work, I had the mask shown in Figure
5-52 and the corrected photograph shown in Figure 5-53. The dodging
and burning-in layers have completely corrected all the unevenness in
the original photograph. This is not a fully restored photograph, by my
perfectionist standards. The overall tonal and contrast characteristics are
not exactly what I would want in a perfect print. But I can assure you
that many clients would be delighted to have a restoration of this
quality.

Fig. 5-49 This is the
Curves adjustment for
the dodging layer that I
used to correct a band of
underexposure at the
bottom of the
photograph. It increases
the brightness of all
tones by a factor of
three.

Fig. 5-50 I used this
dodging mask with the
Curves adjustment in Fig.
5-49 to touch up small
parts of the bottom of
the photograph and
eliminate the band of
darker exposure there.
The result is Figure
5-44d.

How to Enhance Almost-Blank Photos
The half-century-old color print shown in Figure 5-54 is the most badly
faded photograph I’ve ever worked on. Although there is considerable
shadow density, the midtones and highlights have almost completely
disappeared. This is also apparent in the scanner software histograms
(Figure 5-55), which show that most of the tones fall into a huge peak
near the highlights.
The fi rst step in recovering information from a photograph like this ✓ HOW TO SCAN A
is making the scan. Because I’ll need to make truly radical changes to NEARLY BLANK
PHOTOGRAPH
the tonal distribution to produce a good restoration of this photograph,

166

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-51 This curve
controlled the mask
adjustment layer I
created to produce Figure
5-53. It performs several
corrections at once: It
increases the contrast in
the faces, darkens the
shadows on them, and
increases separation and
modeling in their
highlights.

Fig. 5-52 Here’s the
mask for the fi nal
adjustment layer, using
the Curves adjustment in
Figure 5-51.

HOW TO SCAN A
NEARLY BLANK
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

a 16-bit scan is a must. I set the levels controls in my scanner software
to maximize the range of values in the fi le, which got me Figure 5-56.
It’s still bad, but now at least I could make out some more detail in the
baby and the crib. Because tones were so lacking and badly distorted, I
felt it necessary to do some color correction before I made major changes
in the tonal distribution or I’d risk losing data from the most badly faded
red channel. Running the photo through DIGITAL ROC (see Chapter 6,
Restoring Color) got me to Figure 5-57. Neutrality was restored, but the
photograph was still extremely faint.

How to Enhance Almost-Blank Photos

167

Fig. 5-53 The
photograph after
complete tonal correction
with four dodging and
burning-in adjustment
layers. The light leak and
exposure problems are
almost completely
repaired; you can hardly
tell that the bottom half
of the original
photograph was badly
fogged. This job is nearly
ready for damage repair.

Fig. 5-54 This 55-yearold color snapshot is
yellowed and faded to
the point of
near-invisibility.

Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve two approaches for handling images like this. The fi rst is, as
usual, Curves. I created the curve in Figure 5-58 for this photograph.
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an unusual curve for photo restoration; I gave three-quarters of the
darker tones very low contrast so that I could greatly exaggerate the
density range in highlight tones. I moved the white point in a bit to
eliminate the residual highlight stain.

HOW TO SCAN A
NEARLY BLANK
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

168

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-55 The scanner software histograms for Figure 5-54 confi rm the overall fading problem but
indicate that there is still information in the faded areas, as shown by the broadened peaks to the
right in the histograms.

How to Enhance Almost-Blank Photos

169

Fig. 5-56 A new scan of
the snapshot using the
levels settings from
Figure 5-55 shows much
more detail in the baby
and the crib. This
photograph may not be a
hopeless case.

Fig. 5-57 Running the
photograph in Figure 556 through the DIGITAL
ROC plug-in restores
even more detail and
brings the faint
beginnings of correct
color to this photograph.

The resulting photograph, in Figure 5-59a, could not remotely be
considered a good photograph. A lot of work needs to be done to turn
this into an acceptable restoration; see Chapter 10, Examples, page 413,
for a description of how I completely restored this photo. Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important, though, is that a good scan and a serious dose of Curves were sufficient to turn nearly blank photographic paper into a recognizable,
acceptably detailed image.

170

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-58 This Curves
adjustment turns Figure
5-57 into Figure 5-59a.
The curve drastically
darkens the highlights
and midtones, and it
increases contrast in
those tones by a factor
of four.

Fig. 5-59 There are
many ways to intensify
detail in a faded
photograph. All the
photographs here are
derived from Figure 5-57.
Figure (a) is the result of
applying the Curves
adjustment in Figure 558. To create (b) I took
Figure 5-57, duplicated
the background layer,
and blended it in using
the Multiply mode. I
produced (c) by making
two duplicate layers and
blending them both in
using Multiply. Figure (d)
is the same as (c), except
that I desaturated the
second duplicate layer, so
that I was multiplying
luminosity but not color.

How to Make Extreme Tone Changes without Distorting Colors

171

Good scans and Curves are techniques you can use with any image
processing software, but Photoshop provides another way to enhance
faint images. It’s the “multiply” blend mode. Take an image, duplicate
the layer, and set the new layer’s blend mode to “Multiply.” You’ll see a
marked increase in contrast and density.
I did this to the photograph from Figure 5-57 and got Figure 5-59b. ✓ HOW TO RECOVER A
In some ways it’s not quite as good as Figure 5-59a. Multiplication didn’t NEARLY BLANK
PHOTOGRAPH WITH
produce as much enhancement of the highlight detail. On the other CURVES
hand, there is less color distortion in the multiplied version, especially ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
AND “MULTIPLY”
in the midtones and shadows.
BLENDS
For extreme highlight recovery, multiply more than two layers
together. I took Figure 5-59b, duplicated the base layer again, and blended
it in multiply mode. That produced Figure 5-59c. Now there’s a decent
range of densities, but color distortions, noise, and defects are similarly
amplified. It will take a lot of work to clean up this photograph.
Here’s a very useful variant on the last trick. I kept the new layer as
a multiply blend, but I desaturated that layer. In effect, that only multiplied the luminosity. That eliminated some of the color distortions at the
cost of reduced saturation (Figure 5-59d). Sometimes this would be an
acceptable trade-off. Luminosity multiplication is a good technique to
remember when you want to exaggerate or enhance the tonal scale
without doing the same to the color values.
How to Make Extreme Tone Changes without
Distorting Colors
RGB (red-green-blue) color space is the normal working mode for digital
photographers and printers. It is so universally used, in fact, that this
book takes it for granted that you’ll be doing your work in RGB space.
Tone corrections in RGB space, though, can have unwanted side effects
when you’re working on color photographs.
Problems show up because there’s no such thing as pure “brightness”
in RGB space—light and dark tones are made up of combinations of red,
green, and blue. When you alter brightness, contrast, and tonal placements by manipulating the RGB curve, you’re really manipulating those
individual color values. Because of this, extreme changes in tonal placement and contrast will distort the colors in your photograph. Increases
in contrast also increase color saturation; decreases in contrast reduce
color saturation.
Figure 5-60a shows a photograph that was very low in contrast but ✓ HOW TO IMPROVE
still had reasonable amounts of color. I applied the RGB curve in Figure CONTRAST WITHOUT
MAKING COLORS
5-61 to improve the tonal scale and return some true whites and blacks TOO SATURATED
to the photograph. The result, Figure 5-60b, has good contrast but
very unpleasant color. The great increase in contrast I desired resulted
in a very undesirable increase in color saturation, to the point of
garishness.

172

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-60 Increased
contrast usually means
increased color
saturation, but there are
ways to control it. Figure
(a) has pretty good color
but very low contrast. (b)
The Curves adjustment in
Figure 5-61 satisfactorily
increases the contrast,
but it makes the colors
garish. (c) To increase
contrast but not
saturation, use the Edit/
Fade command after
applying Curves. Change
the Fade Mode to
Luminosity, as in Figure
5-62. (d) Use the Hue/
Saturation tool to
produce the degree of
saturation you want, as
in Figure 5-63, after
you’ve made a Curves
Luminosity Fade
adjustment.

HOW TO IMPROVE
CONTRAST WITHOUT
MAKING COLORS
TOO SATURATED
(continued)

If you convert the photograph to Lab space, you can work on the
Lightness channel (that’s what the L in “Lab” stands for; I discuss Lab
space in more detail in Chapter 6) with Curves and other tools without
altering colors. Unfortunately, that space isn’t an intuitive working space
for most photographers, so there’s not much that you’re likely to want
to do there, but it’s occasionally useful. See Chapter 6, Restoring Color,
page 222, for more information about using Lab space. The CurveMeister2 plug-in I described in Chapter 3, page 79, lets you do manipulations in a number of different color spaces, including Lab, and it makes
dealing with these nonintuitive spaces easier.
Photoshop offers two techniques for getting some of the benefit of
Lab space without having to deal with it directly. The fi rst way is to do
your Curves correction in an adjustment layer and set the blending mode
to Luminosity. That behaves almost the same as making the corrections
in Lab space. You can make extreme curve adjustments that radically
change brightness and contrast but have little effect on colors.

How to Make Extreme Tone Changes without Distorting Colors

173

Fig. 5-61 This Curves
adjustment produces
good tonality in Figure 560b. I’ve moved the end
points in to increase
overall contrast and
create some good whites
and blacks. Control
points in the middle raise
the curve and make the
midtones lighter. This
curve also undesirably
increases the saturation
in the photograph.

Fig. 5-62 The Edit/Fade command can be used to change the blending mode of adjustments you
make. Here I used it to change the Curves adjustment in Figure 5-60 to a pure Luminosity adjustment,
so that it increases the contrast but doesn’t change the saturation of Figure 5-60c.

The second way to do this is to use the “Fade” command that’s under
the Edit menu. That lets you alter the strength of the most recent operation you did. It’s useful for scaling back a change if you found you went
a little too far. The Fade Control Panel contains a Mode box (Figure 562) that has a drop-down menu just like the blending options for adjustment layers. I turned Figure 5-60b into Figure 5-60c by using the Fade
command with the Opacity strength left at 100% but the Mode changed
to Luminosity. That converted the effect of the curve from its normal
one to only affecting brightness.
Figure 5-60c had good tonal values, but I felt it was a little bit too
undersaturated. I corrected that with the Hue/Saturation control (Figure
5-63), which increased saturation by 14 points. That got me Figure 560d, which is a nice combination of greatly improved contrast and moderately increased saturation.

HOW TO IMPROVE
CONTRAST WITHOUT
MAKING COLORS
TOO SATURATED
(continued)

174

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-63 This Hue/
Saturation adjustment
adds just the right
amount of color emphasis
to Figure 5-60d.

How to Fix Harsh Shadows on Faces

HOW TO FIX HARSH
SHADOWS ON FACES

Most photo restoration requires increasing the contrast of the photograph. Unfortunately, that usually doesn’t flatter people’s faces. The
original photograph, especially if it was an amateur snapshot, may have
had pretty harsh contrast to begin with. If it was also printed poorly, as
many old photos were, restoring the blacks and whites to their full richness will produce some very harsh skin tones. They will need corrective
surgery before you’ll be able to make an attractive print.
✓
Figure 5-64a was a commercial portrait that wasn’t badly faded; the
print was badly made, so it was very low in contrast to begin with. The
good news is that, because the print densities were undamaged, all it
took to get a full-range photograph were careful scan settings (Figure
5-65) and a small amount of Curves adjustment in Photoshop. That
yielded Figure 5-64b, which has a nice range of tones from black to
white.
Technically it’s quite satisfactory, but it’s not particularly attractive.
The original lighting in the photograph was too directional and came
from too high an angle. When the child leaned forward, the shadows
fell harshly on her face. Happily, there are many ways to improve this.
I applied the Shadow/Highlight adjustment (Figure 5-66) to the corrected photograph to get Figure 5-67a. Because I didn’t increase the
midtone contrast in the adjustment, it softened those tones. In combination with slightly opening up the shadows and substantially reining in
the highlights, this adjustment improved the face quite a bit.
Another way to fi x the face is the good old Dodge tool. It only takes
a few strokes to turn Figure 5-64b into Figure 5-67b. I set the radius of
the tool to about the width of the child’s lips with the hardness at 30%
(a fairly soft edge). I set the range for midtones and the exposure to
12%. Anywhere there was a dark shadow on the child’s face I dodged

How to Fix Harsh Shadows on Faces

175

Fig. 5-64 (a) This early1960s portrait was
printed badly, so it is
very flat and lacking in
contrast. A good scan
(b), using the scanner
settings in Figure 5-65,
restores a full range of
tones to this photograph.

Fig. 5-65 The scanner software histogram and Levels settings for Figure 5-64. I set the black and
white end point sliders to tightly bracket the range of tones in the histogram, producing good blacks
and whites. I adjusted the midtone slider way to the left (a value of 1.9) to lighten up the skin tones
and bring out more detail in the shadows.

it with this brush. Specifically, I ran the brush under her eyebrows and
across the bridge of her nose, over her eye sockets, and along the bags
under her eyes. I also clicked the brush a couple of times in the whites
of her eyes on either side of the pupils to bring them out a bit more.
Next I ran the brush over the “muzzle lines” running from her nose
down to the corners of her mouth. I dodged just under her lower lip and
along the darkest shadows under her cheeks to soften them up. That’s

HOW TO FIX HARSH
SHADOWS ON FACES
(continued)

176

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-66 The Shadow/
Highlight tool does a
great job on Figure 564b, producing 5-67a.
I set the Shadows
Amount to 5%, which
brought out a bit more
detail in the hair and the
dark dress. I set the
Highlights Amount to
13%, which toned down
the highlights a lot and
created much more
detail. I left the Midtone
Contrast alone, which
softened the skin tones
and made the light on
the girl’s face less harsh.

HOW TO FIX HARSH
SHADOWS ON FACES
(continued)

everything; it’s not much! You don’t have to completely rework a face
to soften its look; just tackle the darkest and most contrasty spots, and
you’ll see a big improvement.
When the dodging tool seems too crude and unresponsive, there’s a
better way: Use the History Brush as a customized dodging tool. I applied
the curve shown in Figure 5-68 to the portrait and got Figure 5-67c. All
those harsh shadows have been grayed out (along with everything else
in the photograph). I assigned that state to the History Brush and reverted
to the original portrait. Now I could use the History Brush to paint in
that softening effect.
I set the brush to an opacity of 9% so that I could work the effect in
controllably, with each stroke of the brush slightly lightening the
shadows. I worked over the same areas with the History Brush that I
had with the dodging tool to get Figure 5-67d.
The advantage of using the History Brush is that it’s easy to customize
the effect of the brush to alter tones exactly as you wish. For example,
if the portrait had also had harsh, blown-out highlights, I could have
pulled down the white point on the curve to a light gray and had a brush
that would both lighten shadows and darken highlights automatically.

How to Fix Harsh Shadows on Faces

Fig. 5-67 (a) Applying the Shadow/Highlight adjustment in Figure 5-66 to Figure 5-64b produces a
much more attractive photograph, with better shadow and highlight detail and more flattering skin
tones. (b) The Dodge tool does a good job of removing harsh shadows and lines from faces and
opening up eye sockets and brightening eyes. A few minutes work with that tool turned Figure 5-64b
into this photograph. (c) I made this “dodging print” (see the main text for details) using the Curves
adjustment in Figure 5-68. (d) I assigned the History Brush to the “dodging print” and used it to
paint out the harsh shadows in the photograph. This is a more versatile approach than using the
simple Dodge tool.

177

178

CHAPTER 5 Restoring Tone

Fig. 5-68 This Curves
adjustment created the
“dodging print” in Figure
5-67c. I also used it in a
Curves adjustment layer
in Figure 5-69 that I used
as a dodging adjustment
layer to improve the
portrait.

Fig. 5-69 The original
portrait, from Figure 564b, after correction with
a dodging adjustment
layer that used the
Curves adjustment from
Figure 5-68. The dodging
mask I created is shown
in the right half of the
fi gure. The lighter the
mask, the more dodging
that gets applied to the
portrait at that point.

Using the History Brush as a dodging tool also lets you previsualize
what the effect will be. Before reverting the history state to its preCurves condition, you can duplicate the modified image and keep it on
your desktop as a reference. That way, when you’re working with the
History Brush, you can always see which direction it will be pushing
the tones and how far it can push them.

How to Fix Harsh Shadows on Faces

179

For maximum control, use a masked dodging layer, as I explained â&#x153;&#x201C; HOW TO RETOUCH
WITH A
earlier in this chapter. Instead of applying the curves in Figure 5-68 FACES
MASKED CURVES
directly to the portrait, I used them in a Curves adjustment layer. I ADJUSTMENT LAYER
inverted the layer mask to make it black, which zeroed out the effect of
the layer. Now I could paint in the Curves adjustment just where I
wanted by using a white brush to paint over the mask. Just as when
using the dodging and History Brush tools, I used a small radius brush
set to very low opacity.
This method has all the advantages of using the History Brush along
with being completely reversible. If you make a mistake and dodge
somewhere you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean to or overdo it, just change the brush from
white to black and paint over your mistake. You can switch back and
forth between white and black brushes any time you like, so that you
can rework the mask as much as you need. This is a great method for
beginners, as well as advanced workers, because you never have to worry
about doing anything irreversibly wrong. You can see my results, along
with the layer mask I ended up with, in Figure 5-69.

This page intentionally left blank

C H A PTE R 6

Restoring Color
How-To’s in This Chapter
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How

to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to

make a scan that produces good color
correct color with the midtone eyedropper
correct color with Picture Window Color Balance
correct color using Auto Color options
correct color with DIGITAL ROC
use layers to correct color and luminosity separately
improve color with Curves and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers
make skin tones smoother with Curves adjustment layers
retouch skin tones with an airbrush layer
fix a faded school portrait with airbrush layers
hand-tint a photograph with masked layers
remove color fringes from a photograph
remove developer marks from a photograph
improve color with Color Mechanic

What Makes a Good Print?
After reading Chapters 4 and 5, you’ve likely figured out that the qualities that make for good color in a photograph are a lot like the ones that
give a photograph good tonality. A photograph with good color usually
has a rich range of values from near-white to near-black; this is what I
called the First Rule of Good Tonality in Chapter 5. Somewhere in that
color print you’ll fi nd a bit of deep shadow that approaches black and a
bit of a highlight glint that approaches white. They aren’t necessarily
large or important parts of the photograph, but they’re usually there.
Look through this book at before and after illustrations of color photo
restorations like the one shown in Figure 6-1 and its accompanying
histograms (Figure 6-2). Almost always what distinguishes the restored
photograph from the degraded original is this richness of tones. The
faded-color original won’t have any clean whites or blacks. It’s very
much the same situation we saw with faded B&W prints. Color is not as

181

182

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-1 The faded
photograph on the left
has a narrow range of
tones, shown in the
histogram in Figure 6-2.
Each of the three color
channels has a restricted
tonal scale. In contrast,
the photograph on the
right with good color has
color channel histograms
that use most of the
tonal range.

Fig. 6-2 These are the
histograms for the faded
(left) and color-corrected
(right) photographs in
Figure 6-1. Each color
channel in the faded
photograph looks similar
to what youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d see in a
faded B&W photographâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
no clean whites and no
tones anywhere near
maximum color density.
The color-corrected
photograph has broad,
well-populated
histograms in each color
channel.

What Makes a Good Print?

183

different as you might think, but let’s now concentrate on those
differences.
B&W has only one channel of tonality: gray. It’s easy for people to
understand B&W tonality: As the value rises from 0 to 255, the gray
tone changes from black to white. Color has three dimensions to it: red
values, green values, and blue values (known in shorthand as RGB).
Each of those channels behaves like the gray channel in a B&W photograph, but the color we perceive is the combination of all three and not
the component values.
To get really good color in a photograph, we have to be able to adjust
each of those channels individually with as much fi nesse as we adjusted
the tonality in a B&W photograph. This is much more difficult to do,
but fortunately many software tools will help us.
There aren’t really any deep secrets to getting good color, but there
are some smart rules you may not have thought of. They turn out to be
true so often that you may consider them to be very reliable guides to
good color restoration. Remember the First Rule of Good Tonality that
I said only “usually” applies to color photographs at the beginning of
this chapter? Well, it is much more true when you examine each color
channel separately. The photograph may not have any true whites
or true blacks, but somewhere in the photograph there will almost
always be pixels that will have values near 0 or 255 for one of the individual colors. This is an idea that takes some getting used to, so here’s a
concrete example. The purest, most saturated yellow will have a blue
value of 0 and red and green values of 255. You don’t need a white or
black pixel to get extreme values in the individual color channels of a
color photograph; any pure color will have some component color values
near black or white.
It’s true that some color photographs won’t have pure colors in them, ✓ HOW TO MAKE A
just as it’s true that some won’t have true blacks and true whites. But SCAN THAT
PRODUCES GOOD
the number of photographs that have no whites, no blacks, and no fairly COLOR
saturated colors is awfully small. That means we do have a good general
rule for good color photographs: Each of the individual color channels
will have a broad set of tones spanning most of the range from black to
white. This is not the only requirement for good color, but it is one of
them. That’s why, when I talked about what made a good scan in Chapter
4, I put such emphasis on adjusting the levels for the color channels to
produce histograms that span most of the range from 0 to 255 for each
color (Figure 6-3). It’s about more than just having a lot of good data to
work with; it gets me a lot closer to the color I actually want, as Figure
6-4 shows. Observe the difference in the Photoshop histograms (Figure
6-5) for the unadjusted and adjusted scans of Figure 6-4. In Chapter 10,
Examples, page 354, I do a complete restoration on this photograph,
starting from this adjusted scan.
A second guiding principle is that tone and color are closely connected. Changing the lightness of a photograph changes its color: rich

Fig. 6-3 These are the
scanner software
histogram and Levels
settings for the
photograph in Figure 64, left. The blacks aren’t
bad in this photograph,
but there’s serious
staining and loss of
midtone dye densities.
The Levels settings that
produce a good scan
closely bracket the range
of tones in each channel,
just as they would for
making a good B&W
scan. The blue midtone
slider is shifted to the
right (a value of 0.8) to
eliminate excess blue
from the scan.

Fig. 6-4 The original
photograph (left) is in
good physical condition,
but it’s faded and very
badly stained. The vastly
improved version on the
right is simply the result
of making a good scan,
using the settings in
Figure 6-3.

What Makes a Good Print?

185

Fig. 6-5 Here are the
histograms for the
photographs in Figure 64. A good scan, using the
levels settings in Figure
6-3, takes the unevenly
balanced histograms in
each channel of the
faded photograph (left)
and normalizes them. All
three histograms now
cover about the same
range of tones and make
good use of the available
tonal scale.

colors are usually associated with dark values, and pastels with light
values. You cannot alter tone without altering color and vice versa.
Most importantly, contrast and color intensity (saturation) are intimately intertwined. When you increase the contrast of an RGB image,
you increase its color saturation; when you decrease its contrast, you
decrease the color saturation (Figure 6-6). Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important for you to get
the overall contrast of the photograph approximately right before trying
to fi x the saturation. A common mistake is to look at a photograph that
is too low in contrast, decide that the color is undersaturated, and boost
the saturation. When you kick up contrast to the proper level, the colors
become garish because of the additional increase in saturation.
Consequently, I usually try to correct the tonality and contrast as
much as I can before fi ne-tuning the color. Still, color and tonality are
a two-way street. If I have a photograph that is wildly off in color, I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
evaluate and correct its tonality accurately on the first pass. I will crudely
correct the tonality and contrast; then Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll approximately correct the
color and saturation. Once the color is roughly correct, I can go back

186

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-6 Contrast and color saturation are closely linked. These three photographs are identical,
except that I used Curves to increase the contrast from left to right. As the contrast increases, so
does the color saturation.

Fig. 6-7 Correcting a
single midtone gray using
Curves will do a lot to
correct the overall color
balance of a photograph.
On the left is the original
color-restored
photograph with a
sample point (#1) added
to the background.
Figure 6-8 shows the Info
window with the values
at the sample point and
the red and blue curves
that I used to color
correct that point and
make it neutral (point
#2). That results in the
photograph on the right.

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH THE
MIDTONE
EYEDROPPER

and evaluate the tone and contrast much more accurately and fi ne-tune
them. Then it’s back to the color to refi ne it, working back and forth
until I’ve got the tonality and color just where I want them.
Adjustment layers are a really good way of doing this. As I warned,
it’s easy to overshoot your mark by confusing low contrast with low
saturation, or the converse. Adjustment layers allow you to adjust the
colors and tonal values without locking yourself into a fi xed result.
✓
One last guideline: If you get the blacks, whites, and middle grays
correct, the rest of the colors will follow. Like the other guiding principles in this section, this is not an absolute law of nature. Even when you
have the whites, blacks, and grays just where you want them, the color
may still be off. But most of the time it’s amazing how close it will be
to what you want.
I inserted two eyedropper sample points in Figure 6-7 using the
methods I presented in Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 140. Figure 6-8

Getting the Color Right (Semi-)Automatically

187

Fig. 6-8 Sample points
#1 and #2 in the Info
window correspond to a
point in the background
before and after color
correction. Knowing that
the house was neutral, I
added correction points
to the red and blue
channels and raised and
lowered them,
respectively, until the
value of the sample point
was about the same for
all three channels (178).
That eliminated the
overall bluish-green cast
in the photograph.

188

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH THE
MIDTONE
EYEDROPPER
(continued)

shows the RGB values at the eyedropper sample point before (point #1)
and after (point #2) I applied the red and blue correction curves shown.
The color isn’t perfect, but it’s much closer to being correct.
A big part of successful color restoration is getting yourself in the
neighborhood. RGB color space is a big place; it’s a lot easier to fi ne-tune
the aesthetics of your photograph when you’re close to having decent
color than when you’re floundering around out in the hinterlands of
RGB space, lost and trying to figure out how to get to where you want
to be. The software tools in the next section are no substitute for manually correcting color, but they can get you into the ballpark. It’s up to
you to polish it up and do the fi nishing touches.

Getting the Color Right (Semi-)Automatically
HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH
PICTURE WINDOW
COLOR BALANCE

✓

Picture Window’s Color Balance tool lets you do some pretty sophisticated
color correction without having to mess directly with Curves or Levels.
It’s a very visually oriented tool. Figure 6-9 will give you some idea of
what you can do with it. This is a screenshot from Picture Window
of color balancing in progress. The photograph in the upper left is the
original uncorrected photograph. In the upper right is a preview
photograph showing what the color balance settings will do when they
are applied. At the lower left is the Color Balance main control panel.
Although the Color Balance tool includes a set of RGB curves that
you can manipulate directly, you rarely need to involve yourself with
them. You can do what you need to with probes and aimpoint adjustments. Here’s how it works:
On the left side of the Color Balance control panel, you’ll see a
column labeled “Remove” and another one labeled “Add.” The rows in
each column correspond to highlight, shadow, and midtone values. The
Remove column shows the highlight, shadow, and midtone target points
that are going to be corrected. You can change those target points by
double-clicking on the color rectangle and opening Picture Window’s
version of a color picker, but there’s an easier way. Set the probe to the
value you want to correct (highlight, shadow, or midtone) and then click
the cursor on an appropriate point in the original photograph. Picture
Window will assign that hue to the “Remove” box.
Do that for all three values, click Apply, and you’ll get a result that
looks like the second photograph from the upper left in Figure 6-9. The
color balance is pretty good, but the picture is very flat. Why is that?
Because the default settings for the Color Balance tool change the color
but not the brightness; Color Balance is correcting color but not
luminosity.
You have manual control over brightness values. Click one of the
boxes in the Add column. That opens up a new window in which you
can set the brightness and fi ne-tune the color (if you need to). I opened

Getting the Color Right (Semi-)Automatically

189

Fig. 6-9 Picture Window’s Color Balance transformation is a nice, visually oriented way to do color correction. The original photograph is in the upper left of this screenshot, the Color Balance control panel lower left, and the Preview window upper right.
Clicking on points in the photograph assigns them to Highlight, Shadow, or Midtone values. You can correct the colors and values
of those points using color picker windows, lower right. Picture Window takes care of manipulating the curves for you. Two colorcorrected versions of the original photograph are shown midscreen.

windows for the shadows and the midtones. These are the two rainbowfi lled windows in the lower right of Figure 6-9. The grayscale slider on
the right side of each window changes the brightness of the adjustment
point. The little circle in the rainbow field lets you choose the color for
that point. For the highlights and shadows, you usually just want to
adjust the grayscale slider up or down. You’ll often use the color selector
to refi ne the color balance of the midtone point, especially if there isn’t
a point in your picture that corresponds to a proper neutral gray.

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH
PICTURE WINDOW
COLOR BALANCE
(continued)

190

CHAPTER 6

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH
PICTURE WINDOW
COLOR BALANCE
(continued)

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR USING AUTO
COLOR OPTIONS

Restoring Color

The preview window changes as you move the color point and grayscale slider around, so you can see what your adjustments are accomplishing. It’s a simple, intuitive way to get the photograph into the
neighborhood of correct color. I used the color and slider settings seen
here to produce the second corrected version of the photograph in the
middle of Figure 6-9.
Remember that Picture Window keeps multiple versions of the photographs open; every time you hit the Apply button, you generate a new
photograph from your color balance settings. If you can’t settle on the
best version just by looking at the Preview window, you can create as
many variations as you like (I created two in this example) and decide
which one you most prefer later.
Even if you work mostly in Photoshop, this is still a great tool for
getting your color roughly corrected, because this kind of tone and color
adjustment is one of the fi rst things you want to do to your scan. Save
your scan fi le as a TIFF document, open it up in Picture Window, correct
it and save it, and do the remainder of your work in Photoshop.
Photoshop’s Auto Color adjustment can do a great deal to improve
the color of even a very bad original (or scan). In its default mode (the
command directly under the Image/Adjustments menu), it’s not very
good. The trick to making it work well is to call up its semi-hidden
options; then it can turn out some pretty fi ne results.
✓
Figure 6-10 is an intentionally poor scan. It’s very faithful to the
original, faded photograph—precisely the kind of scan I said not to make
back in Chapter 4. But it could be the kind of scan you’d be stuck
working with if your client provided the fi le to be restored.
Here’s how to semi-automatically correct color. Under Image/Adjustments, click the Levels command. In the Levels control panel, click the
Options button. In the Correction Options control panel, select “Find
Dark & Light Colors” and “Snap Neutral Midtones” (Figure 6-11). That
does most of the color correction for us.
We’ve one more adjustment to make. The default shadow and highlight tones are 0% and 100%, which is likely to clip some highlight or
shadow detail that we want to preserve. Click the Shadows (black) box,
and the Color Picker window opens. Set B (brightness) to 10% and close
the Color Picker (Figure 6-12). Then click the Highlights (white) box
and set B to 90%.
Click OK to close the Auto Color Correction Options, click Auto in
the Levels control panel, and click OK to close the Levels control panel.
When Photoshop asks if you want to save the new target colors as
defaults, click Yes. You’ll fi nd the 10% and 90% end points much more
useful than Photoshop’s original 0% and 100% default values.
That takes us to Figure 6-13. The color is improved, but the tones are
very bad because the large white areas threw off the automatic adjustments. I could’ve made a mask that excluded them; then the Auto Color
tool would’ve done a satisfactory job of restoring tone, but I’ll show you

Getting the Color Right (Semi-)Automatically

191

Fig. 6-10 This old
wedding photograph has
faded to brownishorange. The Auto Color
settings in Figures 6-11
and 6-12 can restore
much of the missing
color.

Fig. 6-11 The key to using Auto Color effectively is taking advantage of its options. You can use
these to tell Auto Color to fi nd appropriate light and dark colors and to automatically make midtones
neutral. The Correction Options also let you control the target colors, to avoid forcing intermediate
tones to pure black and white (see Figure 6-12).

a different, better way to handle this with blended layers in the next
section, Color Correcting with Layers.
My third and favorite way to do automatic color correction is with ✓ HOW TO CORRECT
the DIGITAL ROC plug-in (Figure 6-14), which I introduced in Chapter COLOR WITH DIGITAL
ROC
3. It gives a lot of control without being excessively time consuming, and
the results are usually better than either Picture Window’s Color Balance
or Photoshop’s Auto Color.

Fig. 6-12 The Color
Picker options for the
target colors let you
avoid clipping important
tonal information in the
photograph. I always set
my black and white
points to 10% black and
90% black, respectively.
That makes acceptable
use of the full tonal
range available for
working on the
photograph, but it
ensures that no detail in
the photograph is
accidentally eliminated.

Fig. 6-13 This is what
Figure 6-10 looks like
after applying Auto
Color. The tones in most
of the photograph are
too dark because the
large overexposed area
in the lower right threw
off Auto Colorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
corrections, but the
colors are much
improved. This is a big
step toward a successful
restoration.

Color Correcting in Layers

193

Fig. 6-14 The DIGITAL
ROC plug-in is my
favorite way to correct
color in faded
photographs. It does an
amazing job of extracting
useful color information
from badly faded
photographs. The plug-in
version of this utility
(which is built into the
DIGITAL ICE 3 scanner
software) has capabilities
the scanner software
lacks; it gives you control
over color, brightness,
and contrast balance.
You can selectively apply
color correction with
masks, layers, and the
History Brush.

Figure 6-15 compares all three methods. Starting clockwise from the
upper left, it shows the original, badly faded color print, Picture Window’s Color Balance transformation, Photoshop’s Auto Color correction,
and DIGITAL ROC’s correction. All three improved versions are good
starts on full-color correction, but DIGITAL ROC did the best job (which
is most evident in the color of the clothing, according to the owner of
the photograph). All of these photos, however, share two problems: low
saturation and poor tonality, especially too much contrast. We can fi x
all that with layers.

HOW TO CORRECT
COLOR WITH DIGITAL
ROC (continued)

Color Correcting in Layers
As Figures 6-13 and 6-15 showed us, automatic color correction often
produces undesirable tones. It would be nice to be able to get color
improvements without unwanted tonal changes. Photoshop layers are a
versatile tool for separating color from tone control.
Let’s start with Figure 6-13. I like what Auto Color did for the overall ✓ HOW TO USE LAYERS
color balance, but the main subject area of the photograph is much TO CORRECT COLOR
AND LUMINOSITY
too dark and too flat. Here’s how I fi xed that. First, I made another SEPARATELY
copy of the original scan (remember, always work on copies, never

194

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-15 Color
correction three different
ways. The original, faded
photograph is in the
upper left. I used Picture
Window’s Color Balance
transformation to create
the photograph at the
upper right. Photoshop’s
Auto Color produced the
lower right photograph,
and DIGITAL ROC got me
the photograph at lower
left.

HOW TO USE LAYERS
TO CORRECT COLOR
AND LUMINOSITY
SEPARATELY
(continued)

on the original fi les) and I pasted the Auto Color image from Figure
6-13 into it. That made the original scan the background layer and
the Auto Color version Layer 1. I set Layer 1’s blend option to Color.
That superimposed the color changes onto the original but threw away
the tonal changes, giving me Figure 6-16. The composite is now very
washed out, like the original, but I can fi x this with a Curves adjustment

Color Correcting in Layers

195

Fig. 6-16 Layers is a great tool for controlling color and tonality separately. This photograph is based
on Figure 6-13. Auto Color does a good job of bringing back some of the color to that photograph,
but it produces a photograph that’s far too dark. In this photograph, I’ve copied Figure 6-13 into a
new layer on top of the original photograph. Setting the blend mode for that layer to Color applies
the color changes wrought by Auto Color, but not the brightness and contrast changes.

layer (Figure 6-17). The settings for that layer are shown in Figure
6-18.
The most important change is the huge contrast boost in the RGB
curve, where I pulled the black end point way in to produce a much
wider range of tones in the photograph. I also made moderate adjustments to the red, green, and blue curves to get more neutral whites and
blacks. This is a much better result than I got from Auto Color alone,
and it’s a vast improvement over Figure 6-10. Figure 6-19 shows the
before and after histograms for this heavily modified image. Even though
the photograph has undergone drastic changes, there are no major gaps
in the new histograms. That’s the benefit of working with 16-bit color
fi les instead of 8-bit.
Similar tricks improved the photograph I corrected with DIGITAL
ROC in Figure 6-15. I began with the uncorrected image as the background layer and pasted in two copies of the DIGITAL ROC-altered
photograph (Figure 6-20) as Layers 1 and 2. I set the blend mode on
Layer 1 to Color. I changed the blend mode on Layer 2 to Luminosity
and dropped its opacity to 32%. These layers retained all the color alterations that DIGITAL ROC had made to the original photograph, but only
about one-third of the tone and brightness changes. That suppressed the
excessive contrast produced by DIGITAL ROC and gave me the photograph on the left in Figure 6-21.

HOW TO USE LAYERS
TO CORRECT COLOR
AND LUMINOSITY
SEPARATELY
(continued)

196

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-17 A Curves
adjustment layer
improves Figure 6-16.
Note that this layer is
above the other two
layers, because I want it
to work its changes on
the photograph after the
Auto Color corrections
have been applied. The
Curves settings are
shown in Figure 6-18.

Fig. 6-18 This is the
Curves adjustment that
produced Figure 6-17.
The most important
change is in the RGB
channel, where I moved
the black point in to a
value of about 100. The
other control points
produce more than a
fi vefold boost in contrast
in the shadows and open
up the midtones and
highlights. The three
color channel curves are
set to keep the overall
color balance neutral. I
moved in the end points
for each curve until the
dark suits and the bright
washed-out areas had
little residual color cast.

Fig. 6-19 The histogram
on the left corresponds
to Figure 6-10. The tonal
distributions in each
color channel are narrow,
and they’re displaced
horizontally with respect
to each other. That says
that the photograph is
low in contrast and has a
pronounced color cast.
The histogram on the
right represents Figure 617; it shows the
benefi cial effects that
Auto Color and a Curves
adjustment layer have on
this photograph’s tone
and color distribution.

Fig. 6-20 Layers make DIGITAL ROC work a lot better. ROC does a great job of restoring color, but
it tends to increase contrast too much, blowing out the near-whites and near-blacks in a photograph.
I fi x that by applying ROC to two duplicate layers instead of the original background layer. I set Layer
1 to Color blend and leave the opacity at 100%, so I get the full benefi t of the color correction. I set
Layer to Luminosity blend and drop the opacity on that layer until the contrast looks right, as shown
in Figure 6-21, left. This has the same color as Figure 6-15, lower left, but the layered version has
much better contrast and doesn’t look anywhere as harsh.

198

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-21 The photograph on the left shows how DIGITAL ROC, applied in Color and Luminosity layers, substantially improves on
the original photograph. The middle fi gure shows the photograph after applying the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer shown in
Figure 6-22. The fi gure on the right has better shadows and blacks because I inserted a Curves adjustment layer into the layers
stack, as Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve shown in Figure 6-23.

HOW TO IMPROVE
â&#x153;&#x201C;
COLOR WITH CURVES
AND HUE/
SATURATION
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS

This photograph is undersaturated, so I added a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer (Figure 6-22) and set the saturation level to +35. That
got me to the middle photograph in Figure 6-21. I felt the tonality could
use some further improvement: The midtones and highlights were too
harsh and contrasty, while the shadows were washed out. So I created
a Curves adjustment layer between Layer 2 and the Hue/Saturation

Color Correcting in Layers

199

Fig. 6-23 This Curves
adjustment layer
produced Figure 6-21,
right. It creates better
blacks without altering
the midtones and
highlights. The blend
mode is set to Luminosity
so that it doesn’t alter
the saturation of the
photograph; that’s the
job of the Hue/Saturation
layer above it.

adjustment layer (Figure 6-23). I set the blend mode to Luminosity so
that it would alter the tones but not the colors. The curve increased the
contrast in the shadows and made the darkest tones much closer to true
black, while slightly lightening and lowering the contrast in the midtones and highlights. That produced the right-hand photograph in Figure
6-21.
We’re well on our way, but this photograph needs a lot more work
before it will be a good restoration. Some color distortions should be
corrected—the highlights are pink, while the shadows have gone a bit
cyan. The skin tones aren’t pleasant, mostly because there’s way too
much contrast in the faces. While that was probably a result of the oncamera flash and may be an entirely “accurate” restoration, it’s not
attractive!
Fixing the overall color isn’t hard. In Figure 6-24 I added two eyedropper readouts to the photograph to show the color errors in the
highlights and the shadows that I talked about. I opened up the Curves
tool (Figure 6-25) and adjusted the end points for the red and blue curves
to make the highlight and shadow readouts neutral.
That greatly improved the overall color, which is now considerably
more accurate in the clothes and the room furnishings. The shadows
and highlights no longer have a bad color cast. Unfortunately, this has
made the skin tones look even worse (Figure 6-26, left). Fortunately
there’s a solution.

HOW TO IMPROVE
COLOR WITH CURVES
AND HUE/
SATURATION
ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
(continued)

200

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-24 This
photograph still needs
some color correction, so
I’ve added two sample
points by shift-clicking
with the eyedropper on
the photograph. Those
sample points, in the
white purse and the
black pants of the waiter,
will guide me as I adjust
the curves of a Curves
adjustment layer in
Figure 6-25.

Fig. 6-25 To make the sample points in Figure 6-24 neutral, I adjusted the end points on the red curve to darken the whites and
lighten the “blacks,” so that the red values in the sample points matched the green values (Info window on right). I made similar
adjustments to the end points of the blue curve, so that all three values were approximately the same, resulting in neutral blacks
and whites. This Curves adjustment layer produces better and more accurate colors in most of the photograph, but the skin tones
lost their healthy richness (Figure 6-26, left).

Getting Better Skin Tones

Fig. 6-26 The photograph on the left, the result of applying a Curves adjustment layer with the
curves shown in Figure 6-25, has a more correct overall color balance, but the skin tones were better
without this adjustment. To fi x that, I created a mask for the adjustment layer (Figure 6-27) which
blocks the effect of the adjustment layer on the women’s skin. The result, right, combines the good
skin tones of the earlier version with the more neutral and correct overall color produced by the
Curves adjustment layer.

Getting Better Skin Tones
The Layered Approach
I had applied the curves in Figure 6-25 as a Curves adjustment layer.
Because of that, I can now alter where those curves get applied to the
photograph by adding a mask. In this case, I decided to paint the mask
in by hand because the areas that needed to be masked were pretty
simple. I could just as easily have used a tool such as Mask Pro, and for
a more complex masking job that’s what I would do.
There are no irreversible mistakes when creating a layer mask. I
started off with a large-radius black brush and painted over the faces
and arms of the women. Then I shrank the radius of the brush and fi lled
in the edges. If I painted out too far, I switched the brush to white and
corrected my errors. Pressing the “Q” key turns the Quickmask view on
and off in Photoshop, so I could inspect the mask directly while cleaning
it up. I checked it frequently to make sure I didn’t miss a spot.
In about half an hour, I had the mask shown in Figure 6-27. That
mask blocked the effect of the Curves adjustment on the faces and arms,
producing the photograph in Figure 6-26, right.

201

202

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-27 This mask
separates the skin tones
from everything else in
the photograph. By using
this mask (and its
inverse) I can create
adjustment layers for the
photograph that worked
separately on the skin
tones and the rest of the
photograph, as I do in
Figures 6-26 and 6-29.

I’m not fi nished with that mask. Masks are just grayscale images and
they can be copied and pasted and modified with all the usual Photoshop
tools. Inverted, this mask would help me correct the skin tones.
Skin tones in old color photographs commonly have two problems.
The fi rst is high overall contrast: Tones are usually too harsh, and highlights tend to be blown out, with lines and shadows accentuated. The
second problem is blotchy color; high contrast in each of the individual
color channels exaggerates what should be more subtle differences in
skin hues. Instead of having a healthy range of colors, you see faces with
some patches that look flushed and others that look jaundiced.
I can fi x problems like these with adjustment layers or with careful
hand work. First, I’ll show you the adjustment layer approach. In this
example I apply the same corrections to all three women’s faces, which
won’t be optimal for any of them. For high-quality work, I’d make individual masks for each woman and correct each one’s skin tones
separately.
I copied the mask from Figure 6-27, inverted it, and used it to create
a Curves adjustment layer (Figure 6-28). I set the blend mode on that
layer to Luminosity so that it would alter tonal values but not colors.
What that curve did was reduce contrast in the midtones and highlights
and drop the maximum density in the highlights.

Getting Better Skin Tones

203

Fig. 6-28 This is the
basis for another Curves
adjustment layer to be
used with Luminosity
blend. The mask for this
layer, at left, restricts the
adjustment to working
only on the skin tones.
The RGB curve reduces
contrast and substantially
tones down the bright
hot spots in the women’s
complexions caused by
the on-camera flash.

Figure 6-29 shows successive improvements I made to the women’s
complexions. Figure 6-29a is the same as in Figure 6-26, just repeated
here for easy comparison. The second photo (Figure 6-29b) shows the
effect of the luminosity Curves adjustment layer I just created. There’s
no change in the color balance, but the harsh effects of the on-camera
flash are tamed.
With lower contrast, it’s easier to see the blotchy color problem I ✓ HOW TO MAKE SKIN
described. To understand what’s behind that, look at Figure 6-30. From TONES SMOOTHER
WITH CURVES
top to bottom, this shows the red, green, and blue channels of the afore- ADJUSTMENT LAYERS
mentioned photograph. The red channel looks great. The contrast in the
faces in the green channel (the magenta hues) is a little bit high, and
the contrast in the blue channel (corresponding to yellow) looks very
harsh. It’s that excess contrast in the magenta and especially the yellow
hues that causes the blotchy skin colors.
I described in Chapter 5 how to use an inverted-S curve to tame
midtone contrast. That’s just what I did here. Figure 6-31 shows green
and blue curves that will substantially soften those problematic colors.
I created a second Curves adjustment layer using the mask for the
women, this time with the blend mode set to color. I applied the curves
from Figure 6-31, which produced Figure 6-29c.
The skin tones here looked pretty natural, but I felt they were a little
bit under-saturated. There’s a flat and pasty quality to them, typical of
insufficient saturation. So, I created a third masked adjustment layer,
this time for Hue/Saturation, and applied the settings in Figure 6-32.
That produced Figure 6-29d. The complete stack of layers for these corrections is shown in Figure 6-32, right.

204

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-29 Masked
adjustment layers make a
big improvement in skin
tones. Figure (a) is a
section from Figure 6-26,
right. It shows the
background image with
DIGITAL ROC applied in a
masked layer. This
photograph corresponds
to the bottom two layers,
“background” and
“ROC,” in the layer stack
shown later in Figure 632. Figure (b) shows how
the harsh highlights are
softened by the Curves
adjustment layer from
Figure 6-28 (the “Women
0” layer in Figure 6-32).
(c) Skin tones still look
blotchy, with uneven
yellowish and pinkish
patches. Another Curves
adjustment layer,
“Women 1,” using the
settings in Figure 6-31,
fi xes that. Finally, a Hue /
Saturation layer using the
settings in Figure 6-32
improves the saturation
and refi nes the
brightness to produce the
natural-looking results in
Figure (d).

Getting Better Skin Tones

205

Fig. 6-30 These
individual channel
images show why the
skin tones in Figure 629b look blotchy. The red
channel (R) has smooth,
low contrast, but the
green channel (G) is
harsher, and the blue
channel (B) shows large
variations in brightness
in the skin areas. The
curves in Figure 6-31 fi x
this.

The Airbrushed Layers Approach
When a photograph has too much contrast in the faces but the color is
pretty good, a little handwork often does the trick. Consider Figure 6-33.
The original photograph is on the left, my improved scan on the right.
I used the scan Levels settings in Figure 6-34 to get reasonably neutral
highlights and shadows. The other colors and tones pretty much fell into
line.

Fig. 6-31 These
inverted-S curves,
applied in the masked
adjustment layer
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Women 1,â&#x20AC;? even out the
skin color because they
reduce the contrast in
the midtones of the
green and blue channels.
Lower contrast means
smaller color differences,
so excessive variations in
skin color are
suppressed.

Fig. 6-32 A Hue/Saturation adjustment layer completes the layer stack that fi xes the skin tones in
Figure 6-29d. Increasing the saturation removes the pasty look from the faces, and darkening the
tones a little bit makes them blend in better with the rest of the photograph. Like the two underlying
Curves layers, this layer uses the mask from Figure 6-28.

Fig. 6-33 The original
photograph (left) is
moderately faded and
stained, but a good scan
fi xes most of that (right).

Getting Better Skin Tones

Fig. 6-34 The scanner software histograms and levels adjustments for Figure 6-33. As is typically
the case, bracketing the range of tones in the histograms with the black and white Levels sliders
produces a much-improved photograph.

207

208

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-35 The white
dress and gray suit in
Figure 6-33 made color
correction much easier;
they gave me a wide
range of neutral tones to
aim for. These red and
blue curves make the
clothes come out neutral
(Figure 6-36, left). I
applied these curves in a
Curves adjustment layer
named “Curves 1,” as
shown in Figure 6-37.

Fig. 6-36 The photograph on the left shows how the Curves adjustment layer from Figure 6-35 improves this photograph. Although
the color is quite good, the skin tones have that harsh, “on-flash” look. The middle photograph shows how an airbrush darkening
layer eliminates the hot spots on the couple’s faces. A lightening airbrush layer softens the shadows on their faces and hands
(right). The lighting in the photograph now looks much more professional and natural than it did in the original.

There’s a little bit of color crossover, with the highlights being too pink
and the shadows too cyan, but the man’s suit made it really easy to
correct this by eye. All I needed to do was use the eyedropper to look at
the colors in various tones in his suit and shirt, by clicking/sampling
different places on the suit and shirt, and adjust some of the curves so
that they came out neutral. The curve settings I used are in Figure 6-35.
That got me to Figure 6-36, left.

Getting Better Skin Tones

209

Fig. 6-37 The layer stack
that fi xes Figure 6-36.
Layer 1 is an airbrush
layer set to Darken
blend, and it removes
the hot spots from the
photograph. Layer 2 is
set to Lighten blend;
airbrushing in that layer
opens up the shadows.

I was happy with the color balance, but not with the contrast; there ✓ HOW TO RETOUCH
TONES WITH AN
were lots of blown-out highlights in the faces, and the shadows were SKIN
AIRBRUSH LAYER
pretty harsh. I decided to airbrush away these problems. Instead of
attacking the problems directly, though, I created some special retouching layers to make the work much easier and less error prone. I added
two layers to the photograph (Figure 6-37) and set Layer 1 to Darken
blend and Layer 2 to Lighten blend. Note that these are not adjustment
layers; they’re ordinary image layers.
Next I selected the airbrush tool and set its opacity to a very low level:
9%. I activated Layer 1, sampled the color in the man’s face next to the
highlight on his forehead, and started airbrushing over his forehead.
Because I had the opacity set to such a low level, I could build up tone
very, very gradually and blend it in smoothly with the surrounding skin
tones.
With this layer set to Darken mode and such a light tone in the airbrush, I didn’t have to worry about accidentally airbrushing over any of
the other parts of his face. Sloppy brushwork won’t mess up tones that
I don’t want to change. Should I slip with the brush and run it across
his hair or a darker midtone, it would have no effect on the blended
image, because the color I was painting with would be lighter than those
background layer colors. When I did occasionally overextend my retouching, I airbrushed away the excess retouching by switching the color of
the brush to white. Alternately, I could’ve used a white eraser to remove
my mistakes from the layer.
I airbrushed any part of his face where I thought the highlights were
too bright and shiny. Wherever I airbrushed a highlight, I used color

210

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-38 Here’s what I
painted into the airbrush
layers of Figure 6-36. The
fi gure on the left shows
the Darken airbrush work
that reduces glare and
refl ections from the skin
tones. The mostly black
fi gure on the right
represents the contents
of the lightening airbrush
layer; this is what softens
the shadows. This layer is
actually mostly
transparent; I made the
background black for
clarity’s sake.

HOW TO RETOUCH
SKIN TONES WITH AN
AIRBRUSH LAYER
(continued)

sampled from a nearby area. For example, when I airbrushed his cheeks
I sampled a spot of color right under his eye. When I was toning down
the highlight on his chin, I sampled the color between his lower lip and
the chin. This kind of retouching is really easy; it took me longer to write
this that it did to do the work. You’ll probably fi nd that it’s much simpler
to do it than to understand my explanation of it.
The darkening retouching I did is shown in Figure 6-38, left. As you
can see, I didn’t follow the outlines of the face or highlights very closely
at all. The results, shown in Figure 6-36, center, look entirely professional. Blending in light-toned airbrushing like this really does produce
a seamless-looking photograph.
To deal with the shadows, especially those in the woman’s face and
hand, I switched to Layer 2, which was set to Lighten blend. I worked
the same way I had in Layer 1, using the airbrush at very low opacity
and setting its color to one that was adjacent to the shadows I wanted
to lighten.
I didn’t try to remove much of the shadowing; shadows defi ne the
shape and three-dimensional structure of the faces and hand. Flatten
out those tones too much, and you’ll get a very strange look, as if people
were wearing flat cardboard masks with pictures of their faces on them.
You don’t want to go that far! The shadow work that I did is shown in
the right half of Figure 6-38. I made the background black in this illustration so that the airbrushing would be visible as lighter brush strokes
against the background. The background of that layer is actually transparent, but that makes it too hard to see the airbrush work, which is
pretty subtle. The combined highlight and shadow retouching produced
the photograph in Figure 6-36, right.

Getting Better Skin Tones

211

Fig. 6-39 This old school
portrait (left) is very
badly faded, with little
color apparent save for
pale greens and purples.
A good scan (right)
reveals a lot more detail
in the photograph, but
the color is still
extremely anemic.

In truth, I overdid the retouching in this example to make sure the
changes would show up clearly in the illustration for this book. But my
efforts weren’t wasted. A nice thing about having done this work in
layers is that I can dial back the strength of my retouching. Dropping
the opacity in the two retouching layers to a strength of about 60% gets
me a photograph that looks great as a fi nished print.
The Color Airbrushing Approach
A nice, painterly tool for correcting blotchy skin colors is the color airbrush. In fact, the color airbrush is good for correcting all kinds color
aberrations when pleasing color is more important than technically
accurate results. Like the previously described airbrush techniques, it’s
fast, flexible, reversible, and it doesn’t require you to be a great artist to
use it effectively.
The school portrait in Figure 6-39, left, was extremely faded. To the ✓ HOW TO FIX A
eye, it seemed to have only two colors—a washed out green and a FADED SCHOOL
PORTRAIT WITH
reddish purple. I made a good scan of the print, following the methods AIRBRUSH LAYERS
I’ve used with the other color photos, carefully bracketing the tones in
the scanner software color histograms with the black and white Levels
sliders. This scan (Figure 6-39, right) showed there was more to the
photo, but it was in very bad shape.
The very fi rst thing I did was to substantially increase the saturation
(Figure 6-40) because there was so little color differentiation between

212

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-40 A substantial
(+49) increase in
Saturation makes a big
difference to the
photograph in Figure 639. The results, in Figure
6-41a, show that better
color is possible for this
photograph.

HOW TO FIX A
FADED SCHOOL
PORTRAIT WITH
AIRBRUSH LAYERS
(continued)

the parts of the photograph. That produced Figure 6-41a. Now I needed
to do something about the overall color. I made the curve changes shown
in Figure 6-42. They are pretty complex, so I’ll spend a little time
describing what they do.
The RGB curve leaves the whites untouched, but it darkens the midtones and highlights and increases their contrast and detail. I left the
moderate shadow tones alone, but I made the very darkest tones darker
and closer to true black, which also increased the contrast in the deep
shadows, bringing out their detail. The highlights were a little bit reddish,
but the rest of the tones had a cyan cast. I lowered the maximum value
of the red curve but added an adjustment point that raised all the other
values, thereby adding a bit of cyan to the highlights but removing it
from everything else. The shadows had a very strong magenta/purple
cast to them, so I raised the shadow values in the green curve (subtracting magenta) and lowered them in the blue curve (adding yellow). I also
removed a little bit of magenta and added a little bit of yellow to the
midtones, but I made sure that the highlights didn’t change because they
were pretty neutral.
That got me to Figure 6-41b. That was good enough for me to start
working with color airbrushing. I added a new, empty layer to the photograph and set the blend mode to Color—anything I painted into that
layer would alter the color of the underlying photograph, but it wouldn’t
change its brightness or tonality.
I set the opacity of the Brush to 15%. Note that I used the tool in its
Normal mode: The layer blend setting is taking care of how the airbrushing gets merged. If I wanted to paint directly on the original photograph,
I’d select Color as the airbrush mode, but then I wouldn’t have the ability
to easily revise my work.
Figure 6-43 shows successive stages of color airbrushing from start
to fi nish. First, I decided to remove the cyan cast that was still present
in the highlights on the face and neck. I set the airbrush color to the

Getting Better Skin Tones

213

Fig. 6-41 Figure (a) is
the result of applying the
Hue/Saturation correction
from Figure 6-40 to
Figure 6-39. The color
balance is poor, but at
least there is color. (b)
The curves in Figure 6-42
restored the overall color
balance but leave many
details to be corrected.
(c) The same photograph
after skin colors are
repaired by the color
airbrushing in Figure 643c, applied via a layer
set for Color blend mode.
See the main text for a
full description of this
technique. (d) This
photograph now looks
excellent after the
complete color
airbrushing shown in
Figure 6-43f.

pink hue of the cheek and brushed over the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forehead, around
her eye sockets, across the bridge of her nose and her upper lip and chin,
and along her neck (Figure 6-43a). Her skin was now more uniform in
color but too pink. I used a broad airbrush at very low opacity, selected
some brown from her hair, and ran the brush over her skin to produce
a flesh tone that I liked (Figure 6-43b).

HOW TO FIX A
FADED SCHOOL
PORTRAIT WITH
AIRBRUSH LAYERS
(continued)

214

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-42 These curves
correct the overall color
and tonality in Figure 641a, producing Figure 641b. See the main text
for an explanation of
how each curve affects
the photograph.

The shadows on the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neck and hair were very magenta, so
I selected a yellow-brown tone from her hair and painted over her neck
at moderate strength and her hair at high strength to correct those colors
(Figures 6-43c and d). That gave me the photograph in Figure 6-41c.
Her hair and skin color now looked very good, with the magenta shadows
obliterated and the cyan highlights converted to healthier skin tones.
The upper left part of the photograph was stained yellow, so I sampled
the background on the right and used the airbrush at about 50% strength
to change the color of the stained areas to match the rest of the background (Figure 6-43e). That got me almost to where I wanted to be.
The whites of her eyes and the folds of her dress were too cyan. I
sampled a gray tone and used a small-radius brush at 30% opacity to
dot in the whites of her eyes, erasing the cyan there. I then ran the brush
over the folds of her dress, taking care to avoid the red pattern, making
the folds in the fabric much more realistically neutral. The fi nished color

Getting Better Skin Tones

215

Fig. 6-43 Color airbrushing is done by painting into an empty layer whose blend mode has been set to Color. This shifts the hue
of the underlying layers without altering their density or contrast. The frames here show successive stages in the process of airbrushing Figure 6-41. Restoration starts with airbrushing the highlights in the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s face to eliminate their cyan cast. The airbrushing in frames (b) and (c) evens out the skin color over the rest of her face and eliminates greenish highlights on her hair.
The effect of this intermediate stage of airbrushing is shown in Figure 6-41c. Frame (d) corrects the color in the womanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair,
and frame (e) removes the yellow stains from the background. Frame (f) makes the excessively cyan shadows and folds in her
blouse more neutral, with the fi nished result shown in Figure 6-41d.

216

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-44 On the left is a
faded and stained handtinted photograph. On
the right is the scan I
made from it. The goal of
the scan was only to get
a full range of tones from
black to white. The color
balance of the scan isn’t
too important because
I’m going to retint the
photograph.

airbrush layer is shown in Figure 6-43f. That layer gave me the photograph in Figure 6-41d.
Using Masked Layers to Hand-Tint Photographs

HOW TO HAND-TINT
A PHOTOGRAPH
WITH MASKED
LAYERS

Adjustment layers are a great way to repair hand-tinted B&W photographs. Figure 6-44 shows a 60-year-old photograph that has turned
brown and faded. It also has a little bit of physical damage, some cracks
and stains, but mostly it’s the poor tonality and color that’s the
problem.
As with any restoration, the fi rst step is making a good scan. The
scan I made is shown on the right in Figure 6-44. The purpose of the
scan was not to produce good color, but to get a good range of tones from
near-black to near-white. The color was something I’d take care of with
the adjustment layers.
✓
I constructed a set of masks, one for each area that was to be tinted
(see Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 257, for details). You can create
such masks with the magic wand in Photoshop; the mask range selection
tools in Picture Window; any of the masking plug-ins I recommended
in Chapter 3, such as Asiva Select or Mask Pro; or you can draw the
selection by hand with the Lasso or edge-selection tool. It doesn’t really
matter which method you use in a situation like this. It’s not critical that
the mask be perfect, because you can rework the masks at any time,
adding or subtracting from them with the Brush tool.
I made masks for the dress, the background, the bare skin, the shoes,
the hair ribbons, and the hair. I saved each selection in a separate
channel and named it (Figure 6-45, left). Then I created Hue/Saturation

Using Masked Layers to Hand-Tint Photographs

217

Fig. 6-45 On the left are
the masking channels I
created to hand-tint the
photograph. See Chapter
7 for techniques for
making these masks. On
the right is the stack of
Hue/Saturation
adjustment layers I
created from those
masks. Each layer
corrects the tint in a
different part of the
photograph.

Fig. 6-46 These are the adjustments in the Skin adjustment layer. On the left is the mask for the layer, which restricts its effect
to bare skin only. The Master Hue/Saturation adjustment (center) increases the saturation and lightness of those tones and makes
them redder because I’ve shifted the Hue by −7 points. I also modifi ed “Yellows,” shifting their Hue even further toward the red
and increasing saturation by +15 points. This layer converts the scan in Figure 6-44 to the photograph in Figure 6-47, left. Observe
how this changes the rainbow scale at the bottom of the control panel.

adjustment layers using each of those masks (Figure 6-45, right). Adjusting the settings in each layer let me custom-tint the selected area without
altering the base image.
Figure 6-46 shows the mask for the skin adjustment layer along with
the Hue/Saturation settings that I used. In the master channel, I entered
−7 for the hue to make the skin tones more pink (notice how the rainbow scale at the bottom of the control panel shifted). I increased the

HOW TO HAND-TINT
A PHOTOGRAPH
WITH MASKED
LAYERS (continued)

218

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-47 Successive stages of hand-tinting. The fi gure on the left shows the changes produced by the Skin adjustment layer only.
The middle fi gure shows how the photograph changes after I tinted the background, using the settings in Figure 6-48. The fi gure
on the right shows the fi nished, retinted photograph. See the main text for full details.

HOW TO HAND-TINT
A PHOTOGRAPH
WITH MASKED
LAYERS (continued)

saturation significantly and also lightened the tones until they looked
right to my eye. The shadowed areas in the skin tones were still sallow,
so I went to the yellow channel, shifted the yellows toward the red, and
increased their saturation. That warmed up the shadows sufficiently to
give me the skin tones in Figure 6-47, left.
Next, I corrected the background adjustment layer, using the mask
and Hue/Saturation settings given in Figure 6-48. The adjustments I
made improved the whites, lightened the background, and gave it a
slightly warm tone (Figure 6-47, center). I made comparable corrections,
judging by eye and my taste, to all the Hue/Saturation adjustment layers.
Because everything was being corrected in layers, if I decided I didn’t
like an earlier adjustment, I could go back and correct it by changing
the settings in that layer’s control panel.
I discovered in many cases that my masks weren’t perfect. For
example, the skin mask overlapped the background in a couple of places.
Fixing that was easy. I highlighted the skin adjustment layer, which
automatically activated the mask in that layer, set the Brush tool to a
small radius, and painted with black or white to add or subtract from
the mask. Mask changes were instantly reflected in the photograph’s
tone and color, so it was very easy for me to fi x up the masks by eye.
Periodically, I turned on the Quickmask (Q) view to make sure I had
not missed any spots.
Once I was completely happy with the colors, I went back to the base
layer to clean up the stains and damage. That’s another good thing about
layers; I can repair physical damage without messing up any of the color
corrections I’ve done.

Fixing Chromatic Aberration with Picture Window

219

Fig. 6-48 The adjustments for the Background adjustment layer. On the left is the mask that selects
the background and the white trim on the dress. The Hue/Saturation adjustment shifts the Hue by −7
points, eliminating the greenish cast, and lightens the tones by a substantial +23 points. That whitens
the lace on the dress and makes the shadows in the background softer and more attractive. The
result is shown as the middle photograph in Figure 6-47.

I used the Dust & Scratches fi lter and the Clone tool to clean up the
stains and cracks in the background, and I blurred the background
overall to smooth out the tones. The fi nished result is shown in Figure
6-47, right.
This is not a very sophisticated job of tinting, because the original
hand-tinting was crude and hastily done. Look along the border between
the blue dress and white lace; the studio didn’t even make much of an
effort to follow the contours of the dress and lace. It would have been
easy for me to do a much nicer job of hand-tinting, but I wanted to preserve the charm of the original.
On the other hand, should I change my mind about this, my options
are preserved in the channels and adjustment layers. I can go back and
refi ne the masks, even add new selections and masks if I want to do
more detailed tinting and color corrections; there’s really no limit. My
decision to stop here is not irrevocable.
Fixing Chromatic Aberration with Picture Window
Old amateur color photographs frequently suffer from a bit of lateral
chromatic aberration (color fringing at the edges of the photograph)
because the lenses on the cameras weren’t very good. Some modern
digital cameras also have this problem, so you may see color fringing if
you’re rephotographing the original instead of scanning it. Chromatic
aberration isn’t a big deal, but it is so easy to fix that it’s worth repairing.
If you’re working on a small photograph that is going to be enlarged,
eliminating it helps the enlargement look sharp.

HOW TO HAND-TINT
A PHOTOGRAPH
WITH MASKED
LAYERS (continued)

220

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-49 Lateral
chromatic aberration
(color fringing at the
edges of a photograph)
frequently shows up in
old amateur color
photographs because
lenses weren’t very good.
It’s not a serious
problem, and it’s easy to
fi x, and doing so makes
the photograph sharper.

HOW TO REMOVE
COLOR FRINGES
FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH

Figure 6-49 is a typical 1950s photograph with a case of chromatic
aberration. Photoshop has a tool for eliminating it (the Lens Correction
fi lter), but I don’t like it very much. It’s a coarse adjustment that is too
hard to use precisely. Whenever I need to eliminate chromatic aberration, I use Picture Window.
✓
Figure 6-50 shows how Picture Window corrects chromatic aberrations. The window in the upper left displays a 300% view of the corner
of the photograph that I corrected. Chromatic aberration gets stronger
the further you get from the center of the photograph, so a corner or
edge with sharp detail like this is where to look to judge your
corrections.
The window at the upper right shows what the corrected photograph
will look like. The long rectangular window at the bottom is the Chromatic Aberration correction control panel. Picture Window lets me
change the size and shape of the control panel, so I stretched it out horizontally to expand the correction scales. That way I could make very
fi ne adjustments.
I moved the red shift slider back and forth until I minimized the cyan
and red fringes around the fi ne detail in the preview window. Then I
did the same for the blue shift slider. It’s harder to see the blue correction, because the fringing will be yellow versus blue, which doesn’t have
very good visual contrast. One does the best one can. Once I had the
sliders set, I clicked Apply to create a new, corrected photograph.

Fixing Chromatic Aberration with Picture Window

221

Fig. 6-50 The Chromatic Aberration transformation in Picture Window does a more controllable and
precise job of fi xing this problem than the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop. This screenshot shows
the transformation at work. The window on the left shows the lower right corner of the photograph
from Figure 6-49 at 3× magnifi cation. The color fringing is quite clear at this scale. At the bottom
is the Chromatic Aberration control panel stretched out horizontally to give me very precise control
over the position of the Red Shift and Blue Shift sliders. On the right is the Preview window showing
how the transformation will change the image.

If you’re unsure whether you’ve gotten the degree of correction just
right, reposition the sliders and click Apply again. Each time you do this,
you’ll create a new window with the new version of the corrected photograph. Once you’re fi nished, click OK and you can pick the version
that looks best and save it.
Repairing chromatic aberration should be the second thing that you
do in the restoration process. The very fi rst thing is to clean up the scan,
eliminating all dust, dirt, and physical damage from the photograph. I
didn’t do that in this case, to illustrate why it’s necessary. Look at the
circled area with the dirt speck in the before and after photographs,
enlarged in Figure 6-51. Because dirt’s not part of the image, it doesn’t
have any color fringes. Correcting the chromatic aberration for the photograph smears out the speck into a rainbow smear that will be a lot
harder to retouch. That’s why you want to do all your cleanup fi rst.

HOW TO REMOVE
COLOR FRINGES
FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

222

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-51 This is a
greatly magnifi ed dust
speck, showing what
happens to it after
chromatic aberration
correction. Because the
speck didn’t have any
color fringes to begin
with, the correction turns
it into a rainbow-colored
smear. This will be much
harder to clean up than
the original sharp speck.
Make sure you repair all
dust, dirt, and physical
damage before correcting
chromatic aberration in a
photographic image.

Fixing Color Stains and Development Marks

HOW TO REMOVE
DEVELOPER MARKS
FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH

Sometimes photofi nishers misprocess fi lm. Figure 6-52 shows a photograph from a 35-mm negative that received improper agitation. There
are pink and green bands along the edges where the developer flowed
unevenly around the sprocket holes in the fi lm. This ruined an otherwise good-looking photograph. Fortunately, I can fi x that digitally.
✓
Often the best way to tackle a color stain problem like this is to
convert the photograph from RGB to Lab color. Lab has three channels,
like RGB, but they’re quite different. The fi rst channel is a Lightness (or
Luminosity, L) channel that holds the information about how bright and
dark the photograph is (Figure 6-53). The second channel, the “a”
channel, represents how green or magenta the color is. The closer the

Fixing Color Stains and Development Marks

223

Fig. 6-52 This color
negative was poorly
processed by the
photofi nisher; the pink
and green bands at the
top were caused by
uneven developer fl ow
around the film’s
sprocket holes.

tone is to white in that channel, the more magenta; the closer to black,
the more green. Middle gray is neutral. The last channel, the “b” channel,
represents how yellow or blue the color is, white being pure yellow and
black pure blue.
You can see why Lab space is good for correcting this problem. The
surge marks are almost invisible in the Lightness and b channels; the
problem is mostly with the a channel. Fix that channel, and the photograph will look much better.
The Brush works well for this. I sampled the color midway between
a pink and green band. The circle in Figure 6-54 shows a good sample
point. Then I clicked the a channel to activate it and turn off the other
two channels. I painted over the bands with the airbrush. The bands
were almost eliminated, as you can see in the a channel and full-color
images of Figure 6-55.
The wall didn’t come out perfectly. Although the worst of the color
banding is eliminated, you’ll notice some fainter pink and green splotches
caused by the uneven development. It was easy to paint those away by
sampling the color midway between them. I dialed back the opacity on
the Brush to about 30% so that I could paint over the variations in the
a channel with more control, blending the “light” and “dark” areas into
each other. After I fi nished cleaning up the color, I switched to the
Luminosity channel and used the dodging tool to soften the harsh
shadows on the wall (Figure 6-56).
This was easy staining to fi x because the wall was pretty uniform.
In most photographs the bands and stains cross a variety of tones and
colors. To correct those, you have to use more than one color with the
airbrush, sampling between each pair of bands to get the right color for
that part of the picture. The concept is the same; it just takes more
work.

HOW TO REMOVE
DEVELOPER MARKS
FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

224

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-53 The individual channels of Figure 6-52 in Lab space. Almost all of the development damage
is in the a channel; itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hardly visible in the L or b channels. See the main text for an explanation
of what Lab space is.

Fixing Color Stains and Development Marks

225

Fig. 6-54 This
screenshot shows the
appropriate point to
sample for the correct
average color to repair
the development
bandsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s midway
between the pink and
green bands.

Fig. 6-55 The upper
fi gure is the a channel
after airbrushing; the
lower fi gure is the fullcolor photograph,
showing how much of
the developer bands has
been removed by this
single correction.

226

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-56 After further
airbrushing of the a
channel and some
dodging of the shadows
in the L channel, the wall
in the background looks
much smoother, and the
distracting shadows are
suppressed.

Fig. 6-57 The
photograph from Figure
6-56 after applying the
Curves adjustment from
Figure 6-58. Overall color
balance is restored by
those curves, and this
photograph is now ready
for the fi nishing touches
that will make the color
perfect.

When you’re done cleaning up the a channel, you can convert the
photograph back to RGB color to continue your restoration. That was
what I did to fi nish up the photograph in Figure 6-57. I blurred the wall
to smooth out the distracting shadows and made Curves adjustments to
correct the tone and color (Figure 6-58).
Plugged-In Color Correction
It’s not difficult to see what’s wrong with Figure 6-56 just by looking
at it. The walls are an unlikely shade of green, the sleeve isn’t white,
the girl’s hair looks too red, and her skin tones are sallow. Being
able to correct all of that with just a handful of Curves adjustment
points, as I did, is another matter. Years of experience and a certain
amount of intuition guided my hand. It’s not a skill I can teach you in

Plugged-In Color Correction

227

Fig. 6-58 These curves
correct the color and
tonality of Figure 6-57.
The RGB curve slightly
lightens the photograph.
The red curve fi xes some
minor color crossover,
eliminating a cyan cast
from the highlights and
taking excess red out of
the shadows. The green
curve makes the
photograph overall more
neutral by adding
magenta (reducing
green). The blue curve
eliminates a substantial
amount of color
crossover, making the
shadows considerably
more yellow and
highlights signifi cantly
bluer.

a couple of pages; it’s something you’ll develop on your own after much
practice.
Fortunately, there’s another way to correct the color that is a lot
more artistically intuitive. The Color Mechanic plug-in that I introduced in Chapter 3, Software for Restoration, did an even better job
than my curve corrections (Color Mechanic is also built into Picture
Window). I’m going to walk you through the corrections I made using
that tool.
Figure 6-59 shows the full control panel for Color Mechanic with my ✓ HOW TO IMPROVE
fi rst correction. I wanted to make that wall neutral, so I clicked on it, COLOR WITH COLOR
MECHANIC
which set the light green control point in the color map at the lower left.
I dragged the arrow from that point to just slightly on the warm side of
the neutral center marker. The Preview window in the upper right shows
what happened to the color; the color map on the lower right shows how
all the colors were altered to accommodate this adjustment.

228

CHAPTER 6 Restoring Color

Fig. 6-59 The Color
Mechanic plug-in is
another way to correct
the color of Figure 6-56.
In the fi rst step, pictured
in this screenshot, I
selected a point on the
wall and dragged it
toward the neutral center
point, clearing out much
of the overall greenish
color cast of the
photograph.

Fig. 6-60 Successive stages of Color Mechanic correction. On the left, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve set a control point in the little girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin and dragged
it to a more saturated, slightly pink hue. The center fi gure corrects the color of the girlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hair, eliminating an unlikely pinkish tinge
by making it yellower (browner). In the fi nal adjustments on the right, I added fi xed control points for the green blanket, red
pillow, and brown sofa to lock those colors to their original hues.

Plugged-In Color Correction

229

Fig. 6-61 This is the
photograph from Figure
6-56, as corrected with
Color Mechanic. This is
even better than the
Curves-corrected version
in Figure 6-57. Of course,
there’s nothing to keep
you from using both of
these tools on the same
photograph.

The wall and the sleeve were now neutral, and I wanted to fi x the
skin tones next, so I clicked on the girl’s arm. I dragged the new control
point’s arrow away from the center and a little toward the red, which
warmed the color and increased its saturation (Figure 6-60, left). I
removed the excess red from her hair by clicking on a highlight in it to
create the red control point shown in Figure 6-60, center. I dragged that
arrow toward the yellow, which made the hair browner.
I added three more control points by clicking on the green blanket,
the bright red pillow, and the brown sofa. The new red, green, and
orange points in Figure 6-60, right, pinned those colors to their original
values. I also made slight refi nements to the control arrows for the girl’s
skin and hair. This got me the fi nal version of the photograph you can
see in Figure 6-61.

Why Mask?
You can do restoration without masks, but mask making is an essential
skill if you want to do really good restoration work. Masks let you apply
changes to parts of photographs, so that you can control precisely where
and how strongly an adjustment changes the photo. A mask has no direct
effect on a photograph, it merely governs the adjustment. In other words,
a mask is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
A mask is merely a grayscale image that is the same size as the photograph. Black areas in the mask completely block whatever change
you’re making to the photograph; white parts of the mask permit the
change to work at 100% strength. Gray values in a mask produce intermediate-strength changes—the lighter the tone in the mask, the stronger the effect on the photograph of your adjustment.
Masks are portable. You can save masks as stand-alone grayscale
image fi les, as Alpha channels in a Photoshop layer, or as separate layers.
You can copy a mask from one image to another; you can even make
masks with one application and use them in a different one. For example,
I use some of the mask-making tools in Picture Window to create masks
for use in Photoshop.
Saving and using masks is very simple. Once you’ve composed the
grayscale mask image, create a new channel in the photo you’ll be

231

232

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-1 A mask is
nothing more than a
grayscale image that is
the same size as the
photograph that you
want to mask. It can be a
simple B&W silhouette,
as shown here. This mask
selects for the
background and the
white lace trim on the
little girl’s dress and
blocks everything else.

HOW TO ELIMINATE
TARNISH FROM A
PHOTOGRAPH

masking, copy the mask image, and paste it into that channel. When
you want to use the mask as a selection, go to Select/Load Selection,
pick that channel and click OK. The mask becomes a selection.
A mask can be as simple as a B&W outline or silhouette, like the
ones I used for hand-tinting a photograph in Chapter 6, Restoring Color,
page 216, one of which is reproduced here (Figure 7-1). Near the end of
this chapter, I show you how to make these masks.
Every adjustment layer in Photoshop automatically has a mask. Much
of the time you don’t pay attention to it because the mask is, by default,
white everywhere. In that case the layer adjustments change the whole
photograph uniformly at full strength. Modifying that white adjustment-layer mask is a very useful way of controlling how the photograph
looks.
✓
For example, for the photograph in Figure 7-2 I created the continuous-tone mask shown to select for the tarnished areas in the photograph
(see page 244 to fi nd out how I made this mask). I used that mask in a
Curves adjustment layer with the settings shown in Figure 7-3 to eliminate the tarnish in a single operation. That’s the power of a good
mask!
A mask doesn’t even have to portray the content of the photograph.
I use such masks to manually control the strength of an alteration and
where it gets applied to the photograph. In Chapter 5, page 156, I used
a gradient mask (Figure 5-40) in a Curves adjustment layer to correct
uneven exposure and contrast in the photograph shown in Figure 5-38.
For the photograph shown in Figure 5-44, page 161, I used hand-painted
masks in Figures 5-46 through 5-52 to burn in parts of the photograph
to correct tones and repair the damage caused by light fog in the original
negative. In Figure 5-69, page 178, I used a very simple hand-painted

Many Ways to the Same Goal

233

Fig. 7-2 Continuous-tone masks are powerful correction aids. The photograph on the left is badly tarnished. The mask in the
middle, made using techniques explained later in this chapter, selects for that tarnish. When that mask is used in combination
with the Curves adjustment in Figure 7-3, the tarnish is almost completely eliminated in a single step.

Fig. 7-3 This Curves adjustment, used in conjunction with the mask from Figure 7-2, repairs the pale-blue tarnish. The RGB curve
makes the tones darker, the green curve makes them more magenta, and the blue curve makes them much more yellow. This is
an extremely effective tarnish-repair technique.

mask to dodge and retouch a face, eliminating hard shadows and
lines.
Many Ways to the Same Goal
Just as there are many kinds of masks, there are many ways to create
them. At the end of this chapter, I show you five different ways to mask
the same photograph. Different masking tools appeal to different people
and have different strengths and weaknesses. Simple masks can simply

234

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

be drawn or painted in, as I did with the photograph of the three women
in Figure 6-26, page 201. In most situations, though, manually constructing a mask is very time consuming and tedious. I much prefer tools
and techniques that let the software do the work for me. I use a lot of
different tools for making masks. I discuss my favorite tools in the following paragraphs.
The simplest tool is the Magic Wand in Photoshop. I know a lot of
professionals who think it’s too crude a tool to be very useful, but I’m
pretty fond of it. I use it a lot when I need to make a purely black-andwhite mask. The key to using it with some precision is to keep the tolerance low and use the wand in “Add” mode, so that you can build up
your selection from carefully selected colors and tones. If I select too
much, then the “Subtract” mode comes in handy, along with “Undo”
and history reversions. The big limitation of this tool is that it’s no good
for creating a continuous-tone grayscale mask, which is important for
most masking work.
Conversely, I know professionals who are very fond of the Color
Range Select tool in Photoshop, but I’ve had trouble warming up to it.
I think it’s great for selecting highlights and pretty good for selecting
shadows, but when it comes to using it in the “Sampled Colors” mode,
I usually have difficulty getting exactly what I want. On the other hand,
it does generate a continuous-tone mask.
Back in Chapter 3, I described two Photoshop plug-ins that I’m fond
of: Mask Pro and Asiva Selection. The former is especially useful when
I need to construct a complicated mask and I don’t have strong image
characteristics like contrasting tone or color that easily defi ne a mask.
When I can defi ne a mask in terms of tone, saturation, and color, Asiva
can create it for me very quickly.
Picture Window has several mask tools that work well for me. The
one I like best of all is the Paint tool with the “Similar Pixels” option
selected. Figure 7-4 shows a mask under construction (the bright green
areas are selected areas) that uses the brush settings of Figure 7-5. The
brush makes the pixel values at its center point the selection reference;
it selects any other pixels within its radius that are similar to the target
pixel. As you paint with the brush, it fi nds such pixels and adds them
to the selection.
This is a great tool for masking complicated and subtle boundaries.
Paint along the perimeter of the area you want to mask, keeping the
center of the brush in the selected area. The brush will automatically
include the pixels that are similar and mask out the pixels on the other
side of the border because they’re different. You can set the threshold to
be as narrow or inclusive as you like, so you can mask some very subtle
boundaries automatically. I used a tight threshold in Figure 7-4, and I
was able to selectively mask the legs of the high chair without masking
the background. In the photograph I can barely tell them apart visually,
but the low-threshold masking brush picked up on the difference. With

Many Ways to the Same Goal

235

Fig. 7-4 This screenshot
shows how well Picture
Window’s masking tools
work to fi nd edges (the
unmasked photograph
can be seen in Figure 76). The bright green area
is the selected area. I
painted in that selection
using the Mask Paint
tool, set to track “Similar
Pixels.” Painting that tool
along the border
between the baby and
the background selects
pixels in the background
but rejects those in the
baby and high chair.

Add, Subtract, and Difference options available for the masking tools,
plus an Undo button, it’s not difficult to refi ne a selection.
Figure 7-6 shows the original photograph and the mask I created this
way. It’s still a crude mask: There are lots pinholes in the white areas
because of the tight threshold I used, and the baby and high chair aren’t
masked off perfectly in a few places. Since the mask is just a grayscale
image, I can use the normal Brush and Eraser tools to clean up those
mistakes. Meanwhile, creating the basic mask took me only a couple of
minutes to get 95% of what I need.
Picture Window also has a Brightness Curve tool at the right end of
the row of masking tools. The Color Range Select tool in Photoshop
works like a crude version of that, when you choose the Highlights,
Midtones, or Shadows range for masking. In Picture Window’s tool, you
can control in detail which brightness values get masked by drawing a
curve. You can select a broad or narrow range of tones or even a complicated combination of light and dark tones. Whatever you can draw in
a curve, you can mask for.
How do I decide which tool to use in a particular situation? I look at
the photograph to figure out what is distinctive about the area that I
want to mask. That’s the key to masking: All of these tools work by
fi nding some difference between the part of the photo you want to mask
and the part you don’t. The areas I want to mask might differ from the

236

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-5 A close-up of
the Mask tool control
panel in Picture Window.
The Paint tool is
selected; note the large
number of controls at
one’s disposal for this
tool. Other tools include
Color Range and
Brightness Curve
selection tools as well as
an assortment of
geometric shapes and
spines, plus
combinatorial tools for
adding and subtracting
from mask selections.

ones I don’t in brightness, in color, or in sharpness. The approach I use
to getting a good mask is to emphasize the difference that best defi nes
my intended selection and then pick the masking tool that works best
with that kind of a difference. Let’s look at some examples of how that
works.
Isolating Cracks
You may not have thought of masking according to sharpness, because
none of the tools you normally use for masking distinguishes between
sharp and unsharp parts of the photograph. Photoshop and Picture
Window, though, have fi lters that can do just that.

Isolating Cracks

237

Fig. 7-6 The unmasked
photograph of the baby
and the mask created
with the “Similar Pixels”
Paint tool in Picture
Window. The mask needs
cleaning up and
refi nement, but the Paint
tool has done a
remarkable job of
automatically fi nding the
boundaries between the
foreground and the
background.

Fig. 7-7 This 35-year-old
color photograph is badly
cracked and creased.
Manual damage repair
would work just fi ne, but
a mask that selects the
damaged areas will make
repairs go much faster.

Figure 7-7 is in surprisingly good shape, color-wise, for a 35-year-old
color photograph. The problem is one of physical damage—it’s riddled
with cracks, creases, and missing chunks of emulsion, as the close-up
view in Figure 7-8, left, shows. Frankly, I could paint the whole background charcoal gray, and nobody would notice. Instead, let’s treat it as
a challenge: What can I do to clean up that damage without changing
anything else in the photograph? The answer is to create a clever mask
that selects only the damaged areas.
I scanned this 3-inch by 4-inch photograph at very high resolution: ✓ HOW TO SELECT
1200 ppi. As you can see in Figure 7-8, the photograph isn’t anywhere CRACKS WITH THE
FIND EDGES FILTER
near sharp enough to justify that detailed a scan. I did it because I
wanted to make the physical damage as sharp and distinct from the
photographic image as possible.

238

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-8 A close-up of
Figure 7-7 shows just
how extensive the
cracking is. The muchimproved photograph on
the right is a close-up of
Figure 7-12, the result of
the masking and repair
methods shown in the
next four fi gures.

Fig. 7-9 The Find Edges filter in Photoshop can pick out fi ne cracks. The fi gure on the left shows the
full-color image produced by applying this filter to a copy of Figure 7-7. The photograph on the right
shows the blue channel only, which does the best job of picking up the cracks while ignoring the
real photographic detail.

HOW TO SELECT
CRACKS WITH THE
FIND EDGES FILTER
(continued)

I made a copy of the scan and ran the Find Edges fi lter on it. That
produced Figure 7-9, left. The blue channel did the best job of showing
the cracks without showing any of the photographic detail, so I copied
that as a grayscale image and threw away the other two channels (Figure
7-9, right).
Next, I manipulated that fi ltered image to turn it into an effective
mask. A highly enlarged section of the blue channel appears in Figure
7-10, upper left, with successive alterations shown clockwise. First I
applied a Gaussian Blur to the mask, to widen the edges, and then I used
Curves to make the features much darker and more contrasty. The blur
and curve settings are in Figure 7-11. Lastly, I inverted the mask so that
it would select for the cracks instead of everything else.
I copied the mask into an Alpha channel in the original photograph
(Figure 7-12, bottom) and loaded it as a selection. I applied a Median
fi lter with a 20-pixel radius, which got me Figure 7-12, top. I enlarged
a small section of the photograph in Figure 7-8, right, to show how much
garbage I eliminated in a single operation by using this mask.

Isolating Cracks

239

Fig. 7-10 Successive
stages in making a crackselection mask.
Clockwise from the upper
left, this is an enlarged
view of the blue channel
from Figure 7-9. I applied
a Gaussian Blur to that
channel to broaden the
edges of the cracks. Then
I used the Curves tool to
increase contrast and
make the cracks much
blacker. The settings for
these adjustments are
shown in Figure 7-11.
Lastly, I inverted the
image so that the cracks
were selected (white).

Fig. 7-11 A Gaussian
Blur with a 1.2-pixel
radius broadens the
edges of the cracks and
smooths them out. The
Curves adjustment makes
the background white
and the crack edges solid
black, so that the mask
strongly distinguishes
between them. This
makes a much better
mask for doing crack
repair.

If you’re intrigued by this technique but would like more flexibility ✓ HOW TO SELECT
WITH THE
when creating your edge masks, consider using Picture Window’s Edge CRACKS
PICTURE WINDOW
transformation tool (Figure 7-13). This tool has three different mathe- EDGE TOOL
matical methods for fi nding edges that produce different results. It also
has adjustable strength and two special Action modes: Darken and
Lighten.

240

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-12 The full mask
from Figure 7-10 is
shown at the bottom.
Above it is the
photograph after being
filtered with a Median
filter with a 20-pixel
radius. The mask limits
the effect of the filter to
the crack edges, so it
eliminates a majority of
them while having very
little effect on the
photographic image. An
enlarged section of this
photograph appears in
Figure 7-8, right.

HOW TO SELECT
CRACKS WITH THE
PICTURE WINDOW
EDGE TOOL
(continued)

HOW TO ENHANCE
CRACKS FOR
SELECTION

The Darken action can minimize a lot of damage directly, as you can
see in Figure 7-14, right. You can set how much it darkens the edges
with an adjustment slider. Lighten (Figure 7-14, center) makes cracks
and light spots stand out even more strongly. This mode is not something
you would use for repairing cracks directly, but emphasizing them can
make it easier to select them using other masking tools.
✓
While I’m on the subject of emphasizing features to make them easier
to mask, here’s another way to make it easier to select fine cracks and
other damage for repair. Sharpen a copy of the photograph to enhance
the edges of the cracks before using the Find Edges fi lter or Picture
Window’s Edge tool. Figure 7-15a shows a portion of a photograph that

Isolating Cracks

241

Fig. 7-13 Picture
Windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Edge tool has
several different
mathematical methods
for computing edges that
produce different results.
This screenshot shows
the Sobel method.

Fig. 7-14 The Picture Window Edge tool has options for lightening or darkening the edges it fi nds. You can use this to enhance
cracks (center) to make it easier to make masks from them, or to suppress cracks (right) to repair damage.

242

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-15 The
photograph in fi gure (a)
is riddled with fi ne cracks
that need to be repaired.
Figure (b) shows how the
cracks are accentuated
by an Unsharp Mask
filter, using the settings
shown in Figure 7-16.
This makes it easier for
the Find Edges filter to
pick out the cracks, as
shown in fi gure (c). The
blue channel (d) displays
the cracks most clearly
without including much
photographic detail, so it
will work best for a
mask.

HOW TO ENHANCE
CRACKS FOR
SELECTION
(continued)

is covered with very fine emulsion cracks. (The inset boxes in the upper
left corners of Figures 7-15a and 7-15b show magnified views of some of
those cracks.) The cracks all have well-defi ned edges and are very small,
which make them ideal candidates for an edge-selection mask. Figure
7-15b shows what happened after I applied an Unsharp Mask (Figure 716) fi lter: The fi ne cracks are greatly enhanced in contrast and
sharpness.
I followed this with the Find Edges fi lter (Figure 7-15c). Looking at
the three color channels, the blue channel again did the best job of
bringing out the edges of the cracks without emphasizing the edges of
the photographic detail. I copied the blue channel (Figure 7-15d) and
pasted it into an Alpha channel in the original photograph. In Chapter
8, Damage Control, page 284, I show you how I used this mask to almost
totally eliminate the cracks and crazing in a few easy steps.
The Glowing Edges fi lter in Photoshop has some benefits that the
Find Edges fi lter lacks (Figure 7-17). You can vary the edge width to
encompass wider or narrower cracks; in many cases you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even need
to apply a Gaussian Blur to the results. The smoothness adjustment
works more like a fi ne-detail fi nder; at lower settings it selects for smaller

Isolating Cracks

243

Fig. 7-16 These Unsharp
Mask settings do a good
job of highlighting the
cracks and their edges
without picking up
extraneous detail in the
photograph. Setting the
Threshold above 0 keeps
the filter from
accentuating noise and
low-contrast detail. This
helps the filter work
selectively on the cracks.

Fig. 7-17 The Glowing
Edges filter has controls
for Edge Width,
Brightness, and
Smoothness. For mask
making, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll usually
leave the Brightness
setting at 20, to produce
maximum contrast.
Adjust the Width and
Smoothness sliders until
the filter does a good job
of selecting cracks and
little else.

244

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

HOW TO ENHANCE
CRACKS FOR
SELECTION
(continued)

and sharper edges, while higher settings pick out grosser detail. You can
produce a fairly sophisticated mask in a single step with this fi lter. Note
that the Glowing Edges fi lter only works on 8-bit fi les, so you need to
convert a copy of the fi le from 16 bits to 8 to use this.
Making Masks from Colors

HOW TO SELECT
TARNISHED PARTS OF
A PHOTOGRAPH

Fig. 7-18 The
photograph on the left
(also seen in Figure 7-2)
is badly tarnished. The
tarnish is lighter and
bluer than the rest of the
image. The scan settings
in Figure 7-19 restore
much of the neutrality
and tonal range of the
photographic image,
while at the same time
they accentuate the
tarnish’s blue color. That
makes it easier to select
the tarnish with a mask.

Color is a great way to distinguish between different parts of a photograph that need different kinds of correction, especially if the photograph is in B&W. That’s not a paradox. A B&W photograph in good
condition has no color differences between parts of the photograph. It’s
only when you get damage like differential fading, staining, bleaching,
or tarnishing that you’ll see different colors in different parts of the
image. Color changes are a reliable sign of damage that needs to be
fi xed.
I used Color differences to construct the continuous-tone mask in
Figure 7-2. That mask worked so well that it gave me in one step almost
complete correction of a serious tarnish problem. Here’s how I did it.
✓
Figure 7-18, left, shows the original photograph, which is yellowed,
faded, and tarnished. I made the adjusted scan in Figure 7-18 right by
using the scan level settings shown in Figure 7-19. This gave me a much
better range of tones to work with and removed most of the yellow stain.
It may not be obvious in the reproduction here, but I left the image
slightly yellow, just enough so that it would be easy to distinguish the
bluish tarnish from the proper photographic image.
I used Asiva Selection (Figure 7-20) to build this mask, but any of
several masking tools would have worked. I set the Hue range to restrict

Making Masks from Colors

245

Fig. 7-19 The scan
settings for Figure 7-18.
The black and white
sliders in each color
channel are adjusted to
closely bracket the
highlights in the
photograph while leaving
the shadow tones well
above 0. That leaves the
true blacks in the
photograph as dark
grays, but it ensures
good tonal separation
between the dark tarnish
and the darker underlying
tones.

246

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-20 Asiva Selection
is a good tool for
creating masks selected
by color and tonality. The
mask is shown in orange
in the preview window.
To select for the tarnish
color, I restricted the Hue
range to shades of blue.
In addition, I set the
Saturation slider to reject
the parts of the photo
that had no saturation
(were near-neutral in
color) and the Intensity
slider to middle-dark
tones because the tarnish
is dark but not black. The
mask this plug-in
produced is shown in
Figure 7-2, center.

HOW TO SELECT
TARNISHED PARTS OF
A PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

the mask to shades of blue, which corresponded to tarnish. I adjusted
the Saturation curve so that areas with very little or no saturation would
be excluded from the mask. In the Value curve, I rejected the lighter
tones because I could see they had very little tarnish. I also reduced the
mask selection as the tones neared black because anything in the photograph that exhibited high density couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be badly tarnished. The
orange overlay shows the areas that would be selected. This is what got
me the mask in Figure 7-2.
I applied that mask to the photograph and used the curve settings in
Figure 7-3 in a Curves adjustment layer. These curves moderately darkened the midtones and shadows, made them slightly more magenta, and
made them much more yellow. Remarkably, this simple Curves adjustment produced the very uniform-looking photograph in Figure 7-2,
right. This is not a B&W conversion; it is still a full-color RGB image;
the curves did that good a job of correcting the tonality and color
everywhere.
Exaggerating Color to Select Tarnish
Sometimes the color differences are too subtle to select for directly.
Accentuate them, and they make an excellent basis for a mask. The
photograph in Figure 7-21, top, has widespread, silvery tarnish. The
color difference between the tarnish and the yellowed photograph is not
very strong, so I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make a selection mask directly. Figure 7-21,

Exaggerating Color to Select Tarnish

247

Fig. 7-21 The original
photograph (top) is
yellowed, faded, and
tarnished. I scanned this
photo using the settings
in Figure 7-22 to produce
the middle fi gure. I
intentionally did not
make the photographic
image neutral; by leaving
it warm toned, I got a
more clear-cut color
difference between the
tarnish (which now looks
bluish) and the
photograph (reddish). I
used that to create a
tarnish-selecting mask,
with which I eliminated
most of the tarnish in the
bottom fi gure.

248

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-22 These are the
scanner Levels settings I
used to create Figure 721, center. I let the
blacks remain gray to get
good tonal separation
between the tarnish and
the photograph. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
fully color-correct the
photograph. Leaving the
photograph reddish and
the tarnish bluish makes
it easier to create a
selection mask.

Exaggerating Color to Select Tarnish

249

Fig. 7-23 Applying a
Saturation increase of
+72 points to the scan
from Figure 7-21
produces this image. The
color in the tarnish and
the photograph are
greatly exaggerated,
making it very easy to
see where the tarnish is.
This exaggerated color
makes mask-making
much easier.

center, shows the scan I made with the scan settings in Figure 7-22. I
increased the tonal range, whitened the whites, and made the photograph overall more neutral, but I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do as complete a job of scan
correction as I normally would. By intent there are no tones close to
black, and I left enough residual warm hue in the photograph to let me
separate the tarnish by hue. In fact, I chose scan settings by trial and
error to make the tarnish go bluish while leaving the photograph
brown.
My next step was to enhance those colors in a copy of the scan with
the Hue/Saturation control set to +72 saturation. This produced Figure
7-23. Now I had something I could sink my selection tools into. The
untarnished image is reddish-orange, while the tarnish is intense blue.
The color distinctions are clearly visible when you compare the red
channel (Figure 7-24, top) and the blue channel (Figure 7-24, middle).
I brought up the Channel Mixer (Figure 7-25), turned on the Monochrome option, and set the Blue channel slider to +200%. I slid the Red
channel slider into the negative percentages to create a new B&W image
that would be the difference between the red and the blue channels. At
a red value of â&#x2C6;&#x2019;155%, I got a mask that did a good job of highlighting
most of the tarnish without including much of the undamaged photograph (Figure 7-24, bottom). I converted this image to grayscale and
copied it into an Alpha channel in the original scan.
I loaded my mask as a new selection and created a Curves adjustment
layer with the settings shown in Figure 7-26. That darkened most of the
tarnished areas and eliminated the blue cast to produce the photograph
in Figure 7-21, bottom.

250

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-24 The top two fi gures show the red and blue channels from Figure 7-23. The red channel
shows the least tarnish, while the blue channel shows the most; this isn’t surprising given the colors
in the photograph. I used the Channel Mixer settings in Figure 7-25 to “subtract” the red channel
from the blue channel, leaving only the tarnish behind. The bottom fi gure shows the resulting
mask.

Exaggerating Color to Select Scratches

251

Fig. 7-25 These are the
Channel Mixer settings
that produce the mask in
Figure 7-24, bottom. I set
the Blue slider to 200%
for maximum strength. I
adjusted the Red slider
until I got the
photograph to fade out
as much as possible (a
setting of −155%). The
Monochrome option is
selected so that the
output of the Mixer is a
grayscale image.

Fig. 7-26 This is the Curves adjustment I used in combination with the tarnish mask in Figure 7-24 to produce the repaired photograph at the bottom of Figure 7-21. Much like the Curves adjustment in Figure 7-3, these curves make the tarnish darker, a little
more magenta, and much more yellow. That blends it in well with the background photograph.

Exaggerating Color to Select Scratches
Sometimes you can take advantage of enhanced color tricks to isolate ✓ HOW TO SELECT
AND
scratches for repair. Figure 7-27 is an ideal case. This badly faded and SCRATCHES
DIRT BY COLOR
yellowed photograph is covered with dark stains, spots, and thousands
upon thousands of fi ne scratches. The scratches are very small and
neutral in color, but they’re so prevalent that they almost bury the image
in places. Fortunately the damage is neutral and the image is yellow, so
I can create a color-based mask that selects for the damage.

252

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-27 This
photograph is almost
obscured by damage. It
has faded very badly and
is almost completely
covered with fi ne
scratches, dirt, and
stains.

HOW TO SELECT
SCRATCHES AND
DIRT BY COLOR
(continued)

The scan in Figure 7-28 has improved image contrast and color; now
you can see the damage very clearly. The scan settings in Figure 7-29
produced the better, more detailed scan by expanding its tonal range and
make it more neutral. The enlarged section from the center of the photograph gives you some idea of just how bad the scratches are, but even
this enlargement doesn’t show all the scratches.
Making the image more neutral made all the scratches distinctly blue
in hue. So I started out with the same trick I used on the barbershop
photograph. A saturation increase of +70 points produced Figure 7-30.
Instead of creating the mask with Channel Mixer, as I did in the previous example, I used the Image Calculations tool. This tool combines two
layers or channels in more complicated ways than the Channel Mixer.
Figure 7-31 shows the Calculations control panel. Just as with the
barbershop photograph, I decided to use the difference between the red
and the blue channels to isolate the damage. That’s why I checked the
Invert box next to the red channel. The tricky part to making this work
is the blending mode. Photoshop has 20 different modes, most of which
are difficult to describe in words and many of which have uninformative
names.
What I was interested in was the subset that starts with “Overlay”
and ends with “Hard Mix.” What these blend modes do is accentuate the
results of combining two channels. I won’t just end up with the new
channel that is the simple difference between the red and the blue channels; the blending mode will exaggerate that difference. Some blending
modes’ exaggerations are extremely useful for mask making. I haven’t
managed to internalize what all the blending modes do, so I don’t try to
visualize in my head how well a particular mode will work; I just try
them all out. Very often I’m surprised.

Exaggerating Color to Select Scratches

253

Fig. 7-28 The fi rst step
in repairing this
photograph is making a
good scan, using the
scanner Levels settings in
Figure 7-29. This scan
shows that there’s a
great deal of detail in the
photograph, hidden
underneath all the
garbage. The
enlargement in the lower
fi gure shows just how
pervasive the dirty
scratches are.

For this particular image, the Linear Light and Hard Light blending
modes worked spectacularly well. Both produced masks with almost no
real photographic detail in them; they’re nearly perfectly isolated images
of the damage. The results for those two calculations are shown in Figure
7-32. The top mask was produced by Linear Light blending, the bottom
by Hard Light blending.
It’s a toss-up as to which one would do the best job for repairing this
photograph; both could be useful. The Linear Light blend has better
contrast characteristics for a mask, with stronger differences between
the scratches and the rest of the photograph. The Hard Light mask has
poorer contrast, but it does a better job of suppressing photographic
detail.
I chose the Linear Light mask because it needed less adjustment
(Figure 7-33) to turn it into a really good mask with strong whites and

HOW TO SELECT
SCRATCHES AND
DIRT BY COLOR
(continued)

254

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-29 The scanner Levels settings I used to produce Figure 7-28. As with Figure 7-21, these settings leave some residual color in the photograph, rendering it slightly yellowish. In contrast, the
dirt and scratches come out blue, making them easier to select for.

Exaggerating Color to Select Scratches

255

Fig. 7-30 Applying a
Saturation increase of
+70 points to Figure 7-28
produces this. Now the
photograph and the dirt
and scratches are clearly
differentiated by color.
This photograph gets
turned into a mask in
Figure 7-32.

Fig. 7-31 Image
Calculations works
something like Channel
Mixer, but it offers more
complicated blending
options for the channels
being combined. The
mask I created from
Figure 7-30 involves
subtracting the red
channel from the blue
channel because the red
channel shows the
damage most clearly,
while the blue channel
shows it hardly at all.
The Linear Light (top)
and Hard Light (bottom)
blend modes exaggerate
and enhance the
differences between the
two channels, producing
a much stronger and
more selective mask than
Channel Mixer could. The
results of these two
blends are shown in
Figure 7-32.

Fig. 7-32 The masks that
result from Linear Light
(top) and Hard Light
(bottom) blending of
Figure 7-30 in Image
Calculations. Both of
these are good damageselection masks, but they
have different strengths
and weaknesses. The
Linear Light mask has
better contrast between
the damage and the
photograph, but more of
the photograph is visible
(selected). The Hard
Light mask does a better
job of rejecting the
photograph, but the
contrast between the
damage and the
photograph isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as
strong.

Fig. 7-33 This Curves
adjustment pushes the
tones in the Linear Light
mask from Figure 7-32
toward stronger blacks
and whites. That isolates
the scratches more
strongly in anticipation
of their eventual
correction in Chapter 8.

Exaggerating Color for Hand-Tinting Masks

257

real blacks. In Chapter 8, Damage Control, page 276, I use this mask in
combination with the original and saturation-enhanced versions of the
scan to make some amazing repairs.
Exaggerating Color for Hand-Tinting Masks
Exaggerated color is a good way to prepare hand-tinted photos, like the ✓ HOW TO CREATE
one in Figure 7-1, for masking prior to repair work. In Figure 7-34, left, MASKS FOR HANDTINTING
I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer that was set to a saturation PHOTOGRAPHS
level of +75 to the original scan.
I inserted a Curves layer between the original and the Hue/Saturation layer so I could adjust the color balance to make it overall more
neutral. It wasn’t necessary, but it let me create brighter and more distinct colors with the Hue/Saturation layer (Figure 7-34, right). I didn’t
do anything particularly sophisticated with the curves; I merely adjusted
the end points of the individual color channels so that whites and blacks
both came out modestly neutral. This was not a fi nely tuned color
adjustment.
To create my masks, I used the Magic Wand in Contiguous mode
(Figure 7-35). I started with the dress, making a few clicks in each area
with the brush set to a large tolerance of 30, then narrowed down to 5
to fi ll in near the edges of the selections. Once I thought I had a good
selection, I expanded it by 3 pixels and contracted it by 3 pixels. The
reason for doing that was to fi ll in any “pinholes” (missing pixels) in the
selected area. Finally, I feathered the selection with a radius of 2 pixels
to slightly soften the edges of the affected area and make it look more
like painted-on color.

Fig. 7-34 Exaggerated
color makes it easier to
create masks for handtinted photographs. I
increased the saturation
of Figure 7-1 by +75
points in the photograph
on the left. I used Curves
to make the image more
neutral overall in the
photograph on the right,
so that it would be easier
to selected regions for
hand-tinting by their
colors.

258

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-35 This screenshot
shows the photograph
from Figure 7-34, right,
with its layer stack. The
Magic Wand selects just
the blue of the dress to
make a hand-tinting
mask, shown in Figure
7-36.

HOW TO CREATE
MASKS FOR HANDTINTING
PHOTOGRAPHS
(continued)

I clicked Select/Save Selection and saved in a new channel that I
named “dress” (Figure 7-36). Creating this mask took only a few minutes’
work. Creating all the masks that I used to hand-tint this photograph in
Chapter 6 took me less time than did writing this description of my
methods.
Five Ways to Mask a Damaged Area

HOW TO SELECT
CELLOPHANE TAPE
DAMAGE FOR
CORRECTION

✓

I’ve described several different ways to create selection masks in this
chapter. The methods aren’t mutually exclusive; more often than not
you can make a good mask any number of ways. In this last section, I’ll
show you five different methods, all of which have merits, for selecting
the same area for repair.
Figure 7-37, left, shows an old, faded photograph that was taped
together with cellophane tape. Brittle and brown with age, there’s no
way to remove the tape without destroying the photo. The photograph

Five Ways to Mask a Damaged Area

259

Fig. 7-36 This is the
fi nished hand-tinting
mask for the dress. I
expanded the selection in
Figure 7-35 by 3 pixels
and contracted by 3
pixels. That filled in any
“pinholes” in the
selection. I’ve feathered
the edge of that selection
by 2 pixels to soften the
border, so that the
tinting will blend better
into the photograph.

looks very different where the tape is; to do a good restoration will
require a mask that selects the taped region so that it can be repaired
separately from the rest of the photograph.
My fi rst step was to make a scan that exaggerated the difference in
color between the tape and the rest of the photograph, using the settings
in Figure 7-38. As you can see in Figure 7-37, right, I was able to make
the photograph more neutral and contrasty without losing the distinctive orange color of the tape. That gives the masking tools a pronounced
color difference to grab onto.
This is one of the rare (for me) cases where Photoshop’s Color Range
tool is up to the task. To make the Color Range tool’s work easier, I
increased the photograph’s saturation by +40 before I opened the tool. I
sampled three points—one bright point in the collar under the tape, one
middle tone, and one dark tone on a lapel. Then I adjusted the Fuzziness
slider until most of the tape (but little else) was well selected (Figure
7-39).
The color range masking tools in Picture Window did an equally
good job (Figure 7-40). By itself, the range adjustments didn’t completely select the tape (purple overlay on the photograph at right). They
decently roughed it in, though, so I followed up by switching to
the masking brush with the “Similar Pixels” setting and painted

HOW TO SELECT
CELLOPHANE TAPE
DAMAGE FOR
CORRECTION
(continued)

260

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-37 This stained
and faded photograph
was taped together with
cellophane tape that has
turned brown with age
(left). The scan made
with the scanner settings
from Figure 7-38
improves contrast and
density. It also makes the
photographic image
almost neutral while
leaving the tape marks
orange (right). I can use
that color difference to
create a tape-selecting
mask in several different
ways.

HOW TO SELECT
CELLOPHANE TAPE
DAMAGE FOR
CORRECTION
(continued)

over the tape area. That efficiently fi lled in the gaps to produce the mask
on the left.
The Asiva Selection plug-in produced the mask in Figure 7-41. I
simply swept the eyedropper over the square piece of tape on the right
of the photograph, and Asiva automatically generated the curves settings
and the mask shown.
Mask Pro took a bit more work, but it produced the most complete
and accurate selection of the taped area (although it selected some extraneous matter as well). After I created an 8-bit copy of the photograph
for Mask Pro to work on, I used the “Keep” and “Drop” eyedropper tools
to create palettes of colors that I wanted included and excluded from the
selection (Figure 7-42). Then I activated the Magic Brush tool and ran
it over the photograph. That produced the partial mask that you can see
in green in the illustration. Satisfied that my color selections were appropriate, I applied the “Apply Everywhere” command, and Mask Pro generated the full mask shown on the right in Figure 7-42.
To make my fi fth mask, I didn’t use any special tools, just a simple
trick. When looking at the damage to this photograph in the separate
RGB channels (Figure 7-43, top row), I saw that the red channel showed
the tape the least (making it a good candidate on which to do the actual
restoration work), but the blue channel on the right showed it very
clearly. When I increased the saturation of the photograph, this became
even more pronounced. At +60 saturation, the entire taped area was

Five Ways to Mask a Damaged Area

Fig. 7-38 The scanner software histograms and Levels settings for Figure 7-37. This scan improves
the density and contrast of the original photograph and makes the photographic image almost
neutral in color.

261

262

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-39 Because
there’s a clear-cut
difference in color
between the tape and
the photograph, the
Color Range tool can do
a pretty good job of
creating a mask that
selects for the tape.
Before sampling the
taped region, I increased
the saturation of the
photograph by +40
points to make the color
difference even more
pronounced.

Fig. 7-40 Picture
Window’s Color Range
masking tool selects for
the tape by its distinctive
hue and saturation. In
this screenshot, note how
I’ve adjusted the
selection ranges on the
Hue, Saturation, and
Values sliders to include
the tape as completely as
possible while excluding
the rest of the
photograph. The mask on
the left was created with
Color Range followed by
the “Similar Pixels”
Brush tool.

Five Ways to Mask a Damaged Area

Fig. 7-41 Asiva Selection easily fi nds the tape in the photograph. Restricting the hues to reds and
oranges and the saturation to moderate levels excludes most of the photograph while retaining the
tape.

Fig. 7-42 Mask Pro is able to select the tape very completely, because its Drop and Keep sample
palettes permit me to specify the tape color very completely from multiple sample points. In the
window on the left, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m using the Magic Brush with the colors from the palettes to paint in the mask.
Mask Pro also includes some extraneous areas, seen in the mask on the right, but those can be
erased easily with a black eraser.

263

264

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

Fig. 7-43 The individual color channels for Figure 7-37, top row, show that the tape is most visible in the blue channel. Increasing
the saturation of the photograph by +60 points exaggerates this difference and makes the taped area stand out very clearly in
the blue channel (bottom row).

Five Ways to Mask a Damaged Area

265

Fig. 7-44 The fi gure on the left is the saturated blue channel from Figure 7-43. Inverting that image produces the center fi gure.
Applying the Curves adjustment from Figure 7-45 produces the strong, contrasty mask in the right fi gure.

Fig. 7-45 This curve converts the middle fi gure in Figure 7-44 into a good, strong mask. The contrast
is greatly enhanced, especially in the highlights and midtones, forcing the tones in the areas surrounding the taped region close to black.

266

CHAPTER 7 Making Masks

HOW TO SELECT
CELLOPHANE TAPE
DAMAGE FOR
CORRECTION
(continued)

distinctly darker than the rest of the photograph (Figure 7-43, bottom
row).
I copied the saturated blue channel into a new Alpha channel and
inverted it (Figure 7-44). I applied the Curves settings in Figure 7-45 to
turn that grayish image into a mask that strongly selected for the taped
area.
All five masks will require some manual white and black brushwork
to completely block out the areas I don’t want to alter and select small
parts of the tape that the mask tools missed. That’s part of the beauty of
a mask channel—you don’t have to spend hours getting it perfect with
your masking tools and software. A little manual labor can turn a pretty
good mask into a perfect one.

C H A PTE R 8

Damage Control
How-To’s in This Chapter
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How
How

to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to

clean up dust and scratches from a scan
repair a badly scratched slide
minimize scratches in a print with Curves
minimize scratches with color channels and channel mixing
fill in cracks in a print with a mask
repair cracks in stages with Median filtering
repair large cracks with repeated masking and filtering
repair a torn negative
remove chemical and water spots
eliminate tarnish and silvered-out spots
minimize tape stains
remove print surface textures
erase mildew spots

Every restoration job involves repairing dirt and damage. The work may
be as minimal as cleaning up residual dust specks and scratches in a
scan, but usually the problems are more extensive. I’ve restored many
photographs that had very good tone and color but had suffered some
kind of physical damage.
In this book I emphasize getting the computer to do as much of the
work of photo restoration as I can to minimize pixel-by-pixel manual
retouching. Wherever possible I use software fi lters, tools, and special
programs to repair damage because they are faster and more efficient
than manual retouching and very effective. Whether you’re restoring
professionally or for personal joy, you still only have so many hours a
day that you can devote to photo restoration. If a bit of computer code
saves you hours restoring a photograph, that is time you can spend doing
something else you enjoy (even if that “something else” is restoring more
photographs).
Clever code will only take you so far, though; repair work requires
manual labor and there’s no way around it. There are no ways to totally

267

268

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

avoid pushing pixels around; some damage just can’t be eliminated except
pixel by pixel. Still, virtually all damage can be reduced with a smart
application of software, making your manual repair labors less onerous.
Simple Spotting

HOW TO CLEAN UP
DUST AND
SCRATCHES FROM A
SCAN

Fig. 8-1 This old copy
negative has lots of dust
and dirt specks that need
to be cleaned up. The
original photograph had
dirt on it that was copied
over when the negative
was made. Since then the
negative has acquired its
own layer of grime.

Every scan you do will need some spotting. Scans accentuate minor
scratches and other occasional defects. Even if your technique is meticulously antiseptic, you will still fi nd bits of dirt or dust embedded in the
photograph. As I explained in Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the
Computer, it’s much safer to leave that dust alone than to try to remove
it, so you’ll have to do some cleanup work to get rid of those lingering
specks and scratches.
✓
The old copy negative in Figure 8-1 can use plenty of spotting. Most
of the specks are white in the positive image (Figure 8-2), but there’s a
scattering of dark specks that also needs to be erased. The best and fastest
way to clean a scan is to use Photoshop’s Dust & Scratches fi lter in conjunction with the History Brush. I reserve the Clone tool or the Spot
Healing Brush for only the larger flaws.

Simple Spotting

269

Fig. 8-2 The positive
image of Figure 8-1,
enlarged on the right.
The tonality is pretty
good, but the snowstorm
of white and black
specks makes clear how
much cleanup needs to
be done to restore this
photograph.

I applied the Dust & Scratches tool using the settings shown in Figure
8-3. I used the smallest radius that I could that still eliminated almost
all of the specks. The smaller you can keep the radius, the less damage
it will do to the fi ne detail in the photograph. I raised the threshold to
15 to preserve the grain and texture of the original photograph, while
still eliminating dust specks. That’s important if you want your repairs
to be invisible. The enlargement in Figure 8-4, top, shows what this fi lter
did; Figure 8-4, bottom, shows what would have happened if I had
applied the same fi lter with the threshold set to 0.
I set the History Brush to the Dust & Scratches history state and then
reverted to the state just prior to that. I set the brush to Darken mode
with a radius of 20 pixels. That’s much, much larger than individual dust
specks but small in terms of the scan, which was made at 600 ppi.
All I needed to do to clean up the white specks was to paint the brush
over any part of the picture where there was dust. I didn’t pick them off
one by one with single mouse clicks; I used long brush strokes that took
out dozens of the specks at one time. Used this way, the Dust & Scratches
fi lter has surprisingly little effect on image detail; you can use the brush
very aggressively without obliterating the photograph. If you run the
brush over a sharp edge in the photograph that blurs out as the brush
passes over it, just undo that brush stroke. Reset the History Brush to a
smaller radius, and work it up to the edge of the boundary carefully.
Once I’d fi nished removing all the white specks, I changed the History
Brush mode to Lighten and brushed out all the dark specks. The reason
I didn’t just use the brush in Normal mode to take out light and dark

HOW TO CLEAN UP
DUST AND
SCRATCHES FROM A
SCAN (continued)

270

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-3 Photoshop’s
Dust & Scratches filter,
selectively applied with a
History Brush, is the
fastest and most accurate
way to clean up specks
manually. I set the
Threshold option to 15 so
that the filter preserves
the grain and fi ne detail
in the photograph (see
Figure 8-4). Such a
setting makes the History
Brush strokes less visible.

HOW TO CLEAN UP
DUST AND
SCRATCHES FROM A
SCAN (continued)

specks at the same time is that the Dust & Scratches fi lter has much less
effect on photographic detail in the Lighten or Darken mode than it does
in the Normal mode. That allowed me to be even more casual (translation: work faster) as I applied the brush to the photograph.
It only took a few minutes to produce Figure 8-5. All but the largest
white and black spots are gone. To get rid of those, I selected the Spot
Healing Brush tool with a radius of 20 pixels. For the two white spots
on the jacket, I set the tool to Darken and dabbed the brush over each
spot; the tool fi lled them in perfectly. Then I switched the tool to Lighten
and eliminated the few black spots the same way.
Polishing Out the Scratches
Scratches and scuff marks can be a restoration nightmare. Sometimes
they’re obvious from the moment you look at the original, as with the
Kodachrome slide in Figure 8-6. Often, they lurk in wait to surprise you
when you enhance the tone and contrast in a badly faded photograph
like that of Figure 7-28 in Chapter 7. Regardless, once scratches become
evident, eliminating then with manual retouching is a very timeconsuming activity.
The History Brush trick doesn’t work as well on pervasive scratches
and scuff marks as it does on dust specks. You’ll need to increase the
radius of the Dust & Scratches fi lter because long scratches cover more

Polishing Out the Scratches

271

Fig. 8-4 This fi gure
shows the effect of the
Threshold setting on the
behavior of the Dust &
Scratches filter. With a
Threshold of 15, as in
Figure 8-3, there’s
relatively little loss of
fi ne detail and grain in
the photograph (top)
although almost all the
dust and dirt is filtered
out. A Threshold of 0
(bottom) catches every
last bit of dust and dirt,
but it also destroys the
fi ne detail and texture of
the photograph.

adjacent pixels. You’ll have to set the radius of the History Brush much
smaller because the eye is very good at picking out even subtle brushwork artifacts when they appear as long lines. I have repaired badly
scratched photographs this way, so it’s not impossible, but it is assuredly
a lot of work.
Your best defense is a scratch-free scan. Figure 8-7 shows enlarged
portions of the Kodachrome slide of Figure 8-6 scanned normally and
with DIGITAL ICE turned on. ICE couldn’t remove the scratches completely because the dyes used in Kodachrome fi lm interfere with the way
the scan detects scratches. Still, it did a pretty good job and saved
immense amounts of labor. This is why I so strongly recommended in
the hardware chapter that you buy a fi lm scanner that includes DIGITAL
ICE. DIGITAL ICE won’t work on B&W silver fi lm, though, and the
really effective version of it isn’t available in flat-bed scanners. (I haven’t
tried it myself, but other people have reported that the version of DIGITAL
ICE built into flat-bed scanners performs poorly.)

Fig. 8-5 A few minutes
work with the History
Brush, applying the Dust
& Scratches filter, cleans
up most of the garbage.
A few large spots and
many fi ne scratches
remain, but this is a big
improvement over Figure
8-2.

Fig. 8-6 This
Kodachrome slide has
color and tonality nearly
as good as the day it was
made, but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s very, very
badly scratched.

Polishing Out the Scratches

273

Fig. 8-7 This
enlargement of Figure 86 shows how extensively
the original slide is
scratched (top). The
bottom fi gure
demonstrates what a
good job DIGITAL ICE
does suppressing
scratches even when
scanning this
Kodachrome slide (with
which it is less effective
than with other color
films).

Finding Scratches with the Find Edges Filter
So, your scan, for better or for worse, has scratches. Now what? In many â&#x153;&#x201C; HOW TO REPAIR A
cases you can obliterate them successfully with fi ltering if you can keep BADLY SCRATCHED
SLIDE
the fi lter from attacking the rest of the photograph. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I was
doing manually when I used the History Brush with the Dust & Scratches
fi lter. A good mask can make this almost automatic.
See Chapter 7, Making Masks, for many different ways to mask photographs. For the slide from Figure 8-6, I used the Find Edges fi lter.
Figure 8-8, upper, shows what the scan looked like after applying this

274

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-8 The Find Edges
filter turns Figure 8-6
into the upper fi gure
here. Inverting that
fi gure, converting it to
grayscale, and increasing
the contrast produces a
good scratch-selection
mask.

HOW TO REPAIR A
BADLY SCRATCHED
SLIDE (continued)

fi lter. The lower part of the figure shows the mask I created by inverting
that, converting it to grayscale, and using Curves to give it the strong
blacks and whites that make for a good mask.
I copied that mask into an Alpha channel in another copy of the
original scan and loaded it as a selection (Figure 8-9). Applying the Dust
& Scratches fi lter with a radius of 12 and a threshold of 0 erased a lot of
the scratches. It also erased some of the fi ne detail; look closely at the
printed flowers on the blanket and the bubbles on the babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lips in
Figure 8-10b.

Polishing Out the Scratches

275

Fig. 8-9 The mask from
Figure 8-8 does a pretty
good job of selecting for
the scratches, as this
screenshot shows.
Applying the Dust &
Scratches filter to this
produces Figure 8-10b.

Fig. 8-10 The original
scratched slide is shown
in fi gure (a). Figure (b)
results from applying a
Dust & Scratches filter to
the masked photograph
in Figure 8-9. It has
erased some fi ne detail,
like the bubbles on the
baby’s lips. To restore
much of that detail (c),
use the Fade command
set to Lighten blend after
running the Dust &
Scratches filter. (d) If I
set the Dust & Scratches
filter Threshold to 15, it
doesn’t do a complete
job of removing the
scratches, but it also
doesn’t erase any real
photographic detail.

276

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

HOW TO REPAIR A
BADLY SCRATCHED
SLIDE (continued)

Just like the History Brush, I can apply the fi lter in the Lighten or
Darken mode to reduce its impact on photographic detail. I did that by
using the Fade command with the strength at 100% and the mode
changed to Lighten (Figure 8-10c). The scratches aren’t eliminated quite
as well, but there’s a lot less damage to photographic detail.
What do you do about that “collateral damage?” Use the History
Brush! I assigned the brush to the history state just before the fi lter and
set the brush radius to a very small value of 5 pixels. I used that to brush
the unfi ltered photograph back into the fi ne detail and edges in the
photograph that had been obliterated. There wasn’t a lot to brush back;
the mask had ensured that the fi lter worked mostly on the areas that I
wanted to correct.
Another way to minimize unwanted side effects is to make the corrections in gradual stages instead of trying to eliminate all of the scratches
in one step. I went back to the original, masked photograph and applied
the Dust & Scratches fi lter, but instead of setting the threshold at 0, I set
it at the fairly high level of 15. Now the fi lter had almost no effect on
the photograph at all. It missed the fi ner scratches, but it wiped out the
darkest and worst of them (Figure 8-10d), and I had to do almost no
History Brush work to restore lost details.
The DIGITAL GEM Airbrush plug-in (see Chapter 3) can sometimes
help with very fi ne scratches. I wouldn’t buy this fi lter solely for that,
but if you’ve acquired it for its general retouching and “airbrush” capabilities, try it on a dirty or scratched photograph. Sometimes it can be
very helpful, especially if you use it in conjunction with a selection mask
or with the History Brush, so that you’re only applying it to damaged
areas.

Minimizing Scratches with Masks and Curves

HOW TO MINIMIZE
SCRATCHES IN A
PRINT WITH CURVES

In Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 251, I used color tools to create masks
that selected for scratches and dirt and nothing else. Here’s where I put
them to work. I converted Figure 7-27 to grayscale, shown here as Figure
8-11a. Next I loaded the mask I created with the Linear Light blend
(Figure 7-33, upper) as a selection. I applied the gray curve in Figure 812 to that selection. The intent was to lighten up all the dust and
scratches, since they were darker than almost everything else in the
photograph. Figure 8-11b shows the improvement this made to the
photograph.
On the right side of Figure 8-11, I made a Curves adjustment to give
✓
these photographs a good range of tones and proper contrast. In this
normal-contrast version, the original dirty photo (Figure 8-11c) looks
even worse. It’s very clear now that the dirt and scratches degrade much
of the image. The photograph at lower right (Figure 8-11d) is remarkably
clean considering how simple the masked correction was.

Polishing Out the Scratches

277

Fig. 8-11 Figure (a) is a grayscale version of the photograph in Figure 7-27. Figure (b) shows how much this photograph is improved
by applying the mask from Figure 7-33, top, as a selection and making the Curves adjustment shown in Figure 8-12. That curve
lightens up the dirt and scratches without altering the rest of the photograph. Figures (c) and (d) are improved-contrast versions
of these photographs. They make it much clearer how well the masked Curves adjustment works.

Figure 8-13 shows an enlarged portion of Figure 8-11. The upper,
uncorrected photograph shows how badly the dirt and scratches obscured
the photograph. The middle illustration demonstrates how much applying that lightening curve to the mask-selected scratches improved the
appearance. Using Curves like this is a very important part of doing
restorations because it reduces the visible differences between damaged
areas and the photograph. That makes that damage much more amenable to fi ltering and other software tools that can fi ll in the bad spots with
good image data from the surrounding pixels.
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s usually impossible for a curve to make the damage completely
disappear. A curve that makes the damage invisible against the middlegray background will make it look too dark against a light part of the
photograph and too light when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s over shadow tones. What you aim
for is one that on average minimizes the overall visible impact of the

HOW TO MINIMIZE
SCRATCHES IN A
PRINT WITH CURVES
(continued)

278

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-12 This Curves
adjustment lightens up
the dirt and scratches in
Figure 8-11c, making
them much less visible in
the photograph.

HOW TO MINIMIZE
SCRATCHES IN A
PRINT WITH CURVES
(continued)

damage, even if for some tones and for some parts of the photograph it
makes it worse.
Before I applied the Curves correction, the scratches were so strong
and pervasive that they would have prevented the Dust & Scratches fi lter
from working properly. The fi lter would have fi lled in the scratches with
a combination of the photograph and the dirt I was trying to eliminate.
Now that the damage didn’t dominate the photograph, I could apply the
fi lter.
Applying the fi lter settings from Figure 8-14 produced the results you
see in Figure 8-13, bottom. As I did when working on the Kodachrome
slide, I used a high threshold with the fi lter, so that it would remove
some of the scratches but none of the true photographic detail. Then I
applied the fi lter at lower threshold settings, in combination with the
History Brush, to eliminate the remaining damage.
Enhancing Color to Attack Scratches
Sometimes enhancing and exaggerating the color in a monochrome
photograph actually eliminates most of the scuffs and scratches. This
trick doesn’t work very often, but when it does it’s practically like magic.
When damage has a different hue from the original photograph, the
individual color channels will show more or less of that damage. In
Chapter 7, page 246, I used color channels to emphasize damage to create
masks. Here, I’ll use color to de-emphasize the damage.

Polishing Out the Scratches

279

Fig. 8-13 These
enlargements illustrate
the benefi ts of masked
scratch removal. The top
fi gure is the original
photograph from Figure
8-11c. The middle fi gure
shows how much the
Curves adjustment from
Figure 8-12 reduces the
visibility of the maskselected scratches and
dirt. I created the
improved photograph on
the bottom by applying
the Dust & Scratches
filter in Figure 8-14 to
the masked photograph.
Minimizing the scratches
with the Curves
adjustment fi rst allows
the Dust & Scratches
filter to work more
effectively.

In the badly scratched photograph of the welder (Figure 8-15, left),
the scratches are substantially more evident in the red and green channels than in the blue channel (Figure 8-16). The photograph was a faded
yellow, which meant most of the density for the photograph was in the
blue channel. The scratches and scuff marks were fairly neutral in color;
when I scanned the photograph to shift the image tone from yellow to
more neutral, it shifted the scratches from neutral to bluish. Being blue
meant they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a lot of density in the blue channel. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why

280

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-14 This Dust &
Scratches filter almost
erases the scratches and
dirt from the photograph
(Figure 8-13, bottom).
The high threshold value
of 16 ensures that no fi ne
photographic detail gets
affected by the filter.

Fig. 8-15 The fi gure on
the left is a portion of
the original scan
enlarged to show the dirt
and scratches more
clearly. On the right is
that same photograph
after a saturation
increase of +70 points.
As subsequent fi gures
illustrate, this makes it
easier to extract a clean
photograph from the
scan.

Polishing Out the Scratches

281

Fig. 8-16 The individual color channels from Figure 8-15, left, show that the blue-cyan dirt and scratches are most obvious in the
red channel and least visible in the blue.

the blue channel in Figure 8-16 looks so much better. If I were going to
use conventional techniques for eliminating the scratches, this would be
the best channel to work on. I’m not; instead, I turned to the Hue/Saturation tool for further corrections (see page 304 for more on this
approach).
I boosted the saturation of the photograph by +70 points (Figure 8- ✓ HOW TO MINIMIZE
15, right); the individual color channels are shown in Figure 8-17. Exag- SCRATCHES WITH
COLOR CHANNELS
gerating the saturation exaggerated those characteristics of the channels AND CHANNEL
that were apparent in Figure 8-16. Now the red channel is extremely MIXING
noisy with almost no image visible, while the blue channel is, remarkably, almost damage free. Even the large stains have been bleached.
Figure 8-18, left, reproduces that blue channel with the contrast and
brightness adjusted for a normal-looking print. This is so much better
than the original that it’s hard to believe, and I achieved it with no
handwork. Why did this work so well?
Look at Figure 8-15 and you’ll see that saturation boost made the
(false) colors in both the photograph and the scratches pretty intense.
The photograph is now a very strong yellow, while the damage is bluecyan. Strong colors always have very high densities in some channels
and very low densities in others. A perfectly saturated color, like a pure
red, will have no density at all in one channel (the red one). Any time
you can manipulate the tones and colors in a photograph to produce a
very strong color difference, you’ll be able to create an image where one
color channel will have a very strong rendering of the photograph and
a very weak impression of the damage you’re trying to fi x.

282

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-17 The color channels from Figure 8-15, right, show that increasing the saturation of the photograph increases the differences between the channels. Because the color of the dirt and scratches is purer, they are even more visible in the red channel,
as they are nearly eliminated from the blue channel.

HOW TO MINIMIZE
SCRATCHES WITH
COLOR CHANNELS
AND CHANNEL
MIXING (continued)

There’s more I can do with this. The blue channel doesn’t entirely
suppress the damage, but the red channel shows almost nothing else.
So, if I were to subtract some of the red channel from the blue channel,
I could remove more of the damage without diminishing the photograph
much. That’s what the Channel Mixer settings in Figure 8-19 do. I’m
subtracting one-fi fth of the red channel from the blue channel. The total
still adds up to about 100%, so there won’t be an overall brightness
change. Note that this is the counterpart to the channel mixing trick I
used in Chapter 7 to create the masks that selected for the scratches and
dirt. Here I’m using it to suppress, rather than enhance.
Figure 8-18, right, shows the channel-mixed photograph. It’s even
better than the blue channel alone, an amazing recovery for such a
damaged photograph. I’m well on my way to a clean restoration.
Filling In the Cracks
Filling in cracks is similar to erasing scratches and dust specks, but it’s
a tougher job because cracks are fatter. A typical scratch is only a couple
of pixels wide, so it doesn’t take a very wide-radius fi lter to cover it.
Small features like scratches are also easily picked up in their entirety
by simple fi lters like Find Edges. Find Edges easily selects the edges of
cracks, but selecting the interiors as well takes more cleverness.

Filling In the Cracks

283

Fig. 8-18 The fi gure on
the left portrays the
saturation-increased blue
channel of Figure 8-17
after I’ve corrected the
tone and contrast.
There’s much less visible
damage than in the
original scan (Figure 815). The photograph on
the right looks even
better because I
subtracted a bit of the
noise-laden red channel
from the blue channel,
using the Channel Mixer
settings from Figure
8-19.

Fig. 8-19 The Channel Mixer settings here produce a grayscale image by combining the red and blue
channels from Figure 8-15, right. Subtracting a small amount of the red channel from the blue channel
eliminates most of the residual garbage without affecting the photographic image very much. This
works because the red channel is almost entirely noise with very little image, so it doesn’t subtract
much from the underlying photograph.

284

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-20 This
photograph is faded and
yellowed, but its worst
problem is that it is
covered with a network
of fi ne cracks, shown
enlarged in Figure 7-15.

Cracks are also harder to repair because they’re often not uniform
in density like dust specks and scratches. They can have dark edges and
light interiors, and, if the cracks are large, the interiors may be mottled
or dirty. Just as when dealing with scratches and specks, you can fi ll in
cracks with handwork, but it’s harder. If you use the Dust & Scratches
fi lter, you’ll have to set it to a very wide radius, and that will increase
the amount of damage to real photographic detail. That makes it harder
to use the History Brush to paint in the fi lter, so masking becomes even
more helpful.
Curve tricks like the one I used in Figure 8-13 are very useful for
suppressing cracks before doing serious work on them. In part that’s
because cracks, being larger, occupy a greater percentage of pixels than
simple scratches, so it’s more important to reduce their influence on
fi lters. Another reason is that cracks usually expose bare, white paper,
which is always brighter than any other part of the photograph, so using
darkening curves works everywhere in the photograph, regardless of the
surrounding tones.
Removing Fine Cracks with a Mask and Median Filtering
HOW TO FILL IN
CRACKS IN A PRINT
WITH A MASK

✓

In Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 242, I showed how the Unsharp Mask
fi lter made it easier to create a crack-selection mask for a badly damaged
photograph (Figure 8-20) with the Find Edges fi lter (Figure 7-15d). To
complete that mask, I took that blue channel and inverted it (Figure 821b). Next I applied a Gaussian Blur of 1.2-pixel radius; this filled in the

Filling In the Cracks

285

Fig. 8-21 Figure (a) shows a portion of the sharpened photograph from Figure 7-15b. Figure (b) is the inverted version of the
masking image I created in Figure 7-15d. In fi gure (c), I blurred this mask with a Gaussian Blur of 1.2-pixel radius to fill in the
crack outlines. I turned that into a strong mask (d) with good blacks and whites by applying the Curves adjustment in Figure
8-22.

outlines created by the fi lter, so the mask would select whole cracks and
not just their perimeters (Figure 8-21c). Blurring lowered the contrast
of the mask, so I applied the curve shown in Figure 8-22 to get the
fi nished mask in Figure 8-21d.
Figure 8-23 shows an enlargement of another portion of the photograph from Figure 8-20. I repaired the cracks in that photograph in two
stages. First, I loaded the mask as a selection and applied the Curves
setting shown in Figure 8-24 to the cracks. That darkened them so there
would be less difference between the cracks’ brightness and the surrounding, undamaged photograph.
That lets me better use the Median fi lter to fi ll in the cracks. The
Median fi lter fi lls a pixel with the average of the surrounding pixels. In
photographs like this, where a high percentage of the pixels are in
damaged areas, the average would get thrown off by those light-colored
cracks. Darkening them kept them from distorting the tonal values of
the fi ltered photograph so badly.
I applied the Median fi lter in Figure 8-24 to produce the photograph
in Figure 8-23, right. The 6-pixel radius worked well; if I’d set the radius
too small, the fi lter wouldn’t have sampled enough good pixels to fi ll in
the cracks adequately. If the radius were too large, the fi lter would
sample pixels from far away, and I’d not get the average of only those
colors close to the pixel being fi xed.

HOW TO FILL IN
CRACKS IN A PRINT
WITH A MASK
(continued)

286

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-22 This Curves
adjustment produces a
strong, contrasty mask
from the image in Figure
8-21c. It both lightens
and increases contrast,
producing Figure 8-21d.

Fig. 8-23 Crack repair on this photograph is a two-stage process. On the left is an enlargement from the original photograph
shown in Figure 8-20. In the center is the photograph after applying the Curves adjustment from Figure 8-24 to the masked photograph. That reduces the visibility of the cracks and gives them tones more like the surrounding photograph. This lets the Median
filter in Figure 8-24 work more accurately as it fills in the cracks with surrounding tones (right).

HOW TO FILL IN
CRACKS IN A PRINT
WITH A MASK
(continued)

Figure 8-25 shows a tone and color-corrected enlargement of a portion
of Figure 8-20; improving the color and contrast makes the cracks even
more obvious in the unrepaired photo on the left. See how effective this
combination of mask, Curves, and Median fi lter is at cleaning up the
damage in the photograph on the right. The cracks are almost gone, and
I achieved this without losing fi ne detail in the photograph.

Filling In the Cracks

287

Fig. 8-24 The Curves
adjustment here, applied
to the masked
photograph in Figure 823, left, darkens the
white cracks in the
photograph so theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re
closer in tone to the
surrounding image.
Making this adjustment
lets the Median filter do
a better job because the
muted tones in the
cracks donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t throw off
the average tone as much.

Fig. 8-25 The fi gure on the left is an enlargement from Figure 8-20 corrected for tone and color to
produce a good B&W photograph. With the contrast improved and the stains removed, the cracking
problem is glaringly obvious. The fi gure on the right is the result of masking for the cracks and
applying the Curves adjustment and Median filter from Figure 8-24. The cracks are nearly gone, and
there is almost no loss of real photographic detail.

Removing Fine Cracks in Stages with Repeated Median Filtering
The photograph in Figure 8-26 was originally very low in contrast.
Making a good scan of it (see Chapter 4, page 100) meant increasing its
contrast considerably. That brought out an extensive network of cracks
and emulsion damage.

288

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-26 This
photograph is badly
scratched and marked up.
Fortunately, many
scratches can be removed
with proper masking and
filtering.

HOW TO REPAIR
CRACKS IN STAGES
WITH MEDIAN
FILTERING

✓

Figure 8-27 shows the central portion of this photograph and two
masks I generated using Photoshop fi lters. The Find Edges fi lter (center)
produced a mask that did a good job of picking out the heaviest cracks,
but it didn’t create much distinction between the fi nest ones and the
lighter background. The Glowing Edges fi lter (right) was a better choice
for fi nding all the cracks; they’re much more clearly emphasized, especially against the light background and skin tones.
Again, I tackled these cracks in stages. I loaded the mask selection
and applied the curve in Figure 8-28, left. That subdued the cracks in
the midtones and highlights, although it didn’t accomplish much in the
shadows (Figure 8-29b). Then I applied the Median fi lter with a radius
of 1 to get Figure 8-29c.
I applied the Median fi lter three more times with the same radius,
which took me to Figure 8-29d. Repeated fi ltering improved the picture
because each pass averaged more of the good surrounding photographic
image into the cracks. Had I used a large-radius fi lter, it would have been
more aggressive at fi lling the cracks, but it also would have attacked real
detail and caused problems with dark areas bleeding into light and vice
versa. Keeping the fi lter radius small ensured that the fi lling-in was
based only on neighboring tones.
I did a fi nal Median fi ltering with a radius of 7 pixels (Figure 8-29e).
That did a very good job of fi lling in all the cracks in the midtones. It

Filling In the Cracks

289

Fig. 8-27 This enlargement from Figure 8-26 shows how extensive the scratches are. Photoshop’s Fine Edges filter did well at
isolating the heavier cracks, but it didn’t pick up the fi ner ones (center). The Glowing Edges filter found even the fi nest cracks,
producing the superior mask on the right.

Fig. 8-28 These Curves
adjustments, when
applied to the masked
photograph in Figure 829a, substantially reduce
the visibility of the
scratches in Figures 829b and 8-30b. See the
main text for details.

also erased photographic detail in a couple of small places, but I restored
that with the History Brush assigned to the prefi lter history state. Even
at this larger radius, though, the Median fi lter couldn’t fi ll in the very
light, closely spaced cracks in the shadows.
I went after them with a second pass. First I used the History Brush
to erase the effect of the 7-pixel Median fi lter in the shadows (Figure 830a), and then I applied the curve in Figure 8-28, right. That substantially darkened the cracks in the shadows so the Median fi lter could work
more effectively there. You can see the results in Figure 8-30b. This
curve messed up the midtones and highlights, but that wasn’t going to
be a problem because I was planning to use the History Brush to paint
in the new round of corrections only where I wanted them.

HOW TO REPAIR
CRACKS IN STAGES
WITH MEDIAN
FILTERING
(continued)

290

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-29 The original photograph, in fi gure (a), has many white scratches defacing the image. Masking it with the mask from
Figure 8-27, right, and applying the Curves adjustment from Figure 8-28, left, reduces the visibility of scratches in the midtones
and highlights (fi gure b). Applying a Median filter with a 1-pixel radius produces fi gure (c); repeated applications of the Median
filter generate fi gures (d) and (e), as described in the text.

Because I was working in the shadows where there was little image
detail or difference in tones, I could use a Median fi lter of large radius
(13 pixels) to fi ll in the cracks with a single pass. That produced Figure
8-30c—which looks great in the shadows but has distorted midtones and
highlights. Out came the History Brush! I assigned this new Median
fi lter history state to the brush and reverted the photograph to the state
corresponding to Figure 8-30a. I used the brush to paint the Median
fi ltration into the shadows and midtones that hadn’t been properly corrected on the fi rst pass. The result is Figure 8-30d, and Figure 8-31 shows
the full before and after photographs. There’s a lot of work to be done
to turn this into a good photograph, mostly dodging and burning-in with
layers like those I described in Chapter 5, page 160, but the majority of
the fi ne-detail physical damage is gone.
Whittling Away at Wide Cracks
When cracks get more than several pixels wide, single-pass fi ll-ins are
hard because it’s difficult to make selections that grab the entire crack.

Filling In the Cracks

291

Fig. 8-30 (a) This
photograph is the same
as Figure 8-29b, except I
used the History Brush to
undo the effects of the
Median filter in the
shadows. (b) Applying
the Curves adjustment
from Figure 8-28, right,
to the masked photo
darkens the scratches in
the shadows very
effectively. Applying the
Median filter then
produces fi gure (c),
which has great shadows
but messed-up midtones
and highlights. I assigned
this state to the History
Brush, reverted to Figure
8-30a, and used the
Brush to paint the scratch
filtering into the shadows
of fi gure (d). The full
photograph of these
results is shown in Figure
8-31, right.

Fig. 8-31 The original
photograph, left, has
way too many fi ne
scratches to make
manual retouching
feasible. I substantially
repaired it by masking
and repeated Median
filtering, as shown on the
right.

292

CHAPTER 8

Damage Control

Fig. 8-32 I created a mask for this badly cracked photograph by using Photoshop’s Find Edges filter. That filter (center) picks up
the edges of the cracks well. The blue channel from that image, inverted and contrast enhanced, makes a good crack-selection
mask (right).

HOW TO REPAIR
LARGE CRACKS WITH
REPEATED MASKING
AND FILTERING

Even when I succeed at this, the fi lters I apply will be influenced as much
by the cracks as by the surrounding photograph I’m trying to fi ll them
in with. Instead of trying to clear out the whole crack at once, I’ll whittle
away at it, peeling off its pixels like layers from an onion. Here’s how
that works.
When I worked on Figure 8-32, left, in Chapter 7 (see page 240) I
✓
emphasized masking methods that would grab the damaged areas as
completely as possible. Now I’m going to approach it from a different
angle. I made a copy of the fi le and used the Find Edges fi lter to pick up
the small specks and the edges of the large cracks (Figure 8-32, center).
I copied the blue channel from that image, inverted it, and increased the
contrast to make the background black and all the edges of the cracks
solid white, so that it would make a good mask (Figure 8-32, right).
I loaded this mask as a selection and applied the Dust & Scratches
fi lter shown in Figure 8-33. I set the radius on the fi lter large because I
wanted to sample lots of surrounding pixels. I relied on the mask to limit
the area that the fi lter affected. This eliminated most of the small cracks
and specks and substantially reduced the extent of the large cracks, as
you can see in Figure 8-34, left, and enlarged in Figure 8-35b.
To peel off the next layer of the cracks, I needed to create a new
selection mask. First I made a copy of the cleaned-up image and aggressively sharpened it (Figure 8-35c) with the Unsharp Mask fi lter shown
in Figure 8-36. I did that to create new sharp edges on the cracks that
the Find Edges fi lter could grab onto. Then I made a new edge-selection
mask the same way I did the fi rst one: I applied the Find Edges fi lter,
inverted the results, and increased the contrast so the mask had true
blacks and whites. I loaded this new mask onto the photograph, used
the same Dust & Scratches fi lter I had previously, and got the results you
see in Figure 8-34, right, and Figure 8-35d.

Filling In the Cracks

293

Fig. 8-33 I applied this
Dust & Scratches filter to
the masked photograph
in Figure 8-32 to produce
Figure 8-34, left. Note
the large filter radius; Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m
using the mask to restrict
the spread of the filterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
effects instead of the
radius setting.

Fig. 8-34 The photograph on the left illustrates how the Dust & Scratches filter from Figure 8-33
improves Figure 8-32. The enlargements in Figure 8-35 show that the mask restricted the effect of
the filter so that it whittled away at the cracks without destroying real photographic detail. Additional
edge-selection masking and Dust & Scratches filtering eliminates even more of the cracks (right).

294

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-35 Figure (a)
shows an enlargement of
Figure 8-32, left. Figure
(b) shows an
enlargement of Figure 834, left, illustrating how
much damage can be
cleaned up by masking
plus the Dust & Scratches
filter. Figure (c) is an
intermediate work image
I created by aggressively
sharpening fi gure (b)
with the Unsharp Mask
filter settings shown in
Figure 8-36. I created a
new edge-selection mask
from fi gure (c), applied it
to fi gure (b), and ran the
Dust & Scratches filter
again, as shown in
fi gure (d).

Fig. 8-36 This extremely
strong Unsharp Mask
filter enhances the edges
of the cracks left in
Figure 8-35b. This
facilitates the Find Edges
filter in making a new
edge-selection mask from
those remaining cracks.

Paving Over Tears and Holes

295

Fig. 8-37 This negative
has a tear at the bottom
that makes it impossible
to print conventionally
without a lot of print
retouching.

You can run this kind of mask-and-fi lter cycle repeatedly until you fi ll
in the cracks. After the second or third pass, you’ll have fi ltered all the
small cracks and only have the remnants of the largest ones left. If you
do this for too many cycles, you’ll start to degrade the photograph
because the mask doesn’t perfectly distinguish between the photograph
and the damage; the fi ltering will “leak” into the photograph a little bit
with each pass. To prevent that, I use the History Brush to paint in the
later fi ltering passes just where I want them. Since I’ve already eliminated
99% of the defects, this isn’t too onerous and time consuming.

HOW TO REPAIR
LARGE CRACKS WITH
REPEATED MASKING
AND FILTERING
(continued)

Paving Over Tears and Holes
Tears and small holes, while catastrophic to original photographs, are
really not all that hard to repair. Clean tears, especially, produce damage
that is is localized and well defi ned. In principle, you can repair it with
nothing more than judicious use of the Clone tool, but there are lots of
ways to make the job go faster.
Figure 8-37 shows a negative with a tear along its lower edge. The ✓ HOW TO REPAIR A
fi rst tool I used to attack it was Image Doctor’s Smart Fill function. (Note: TORN NEGATIVE
Image Doctor only works on 8-bit fi les.) I circled the crack with the Lasso
tool (Figure 8-38) and brought up Image Doctor. Image Doctor’s default
settings fi lled in the tear with detail extracted from neighboring undamaged areas (Figure 8-39).
If you look closely, you’ll see that Image Doctor didn’t get it quite
right in some places, but it did a good enough job that a little spot-cloning
would wipe out those artifacts. In fact, the proper way to use Image

Fig. 8-38 This screenshot
shows an enlargement of
the tear in Figure 8-37.
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve lassoed it for
correction by Image
Doctor.

Fig. 8-39 Image Doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Smart Fill function
samples the area around
the selected crack
(hatched rectangle in the
top fi gure) and computes
new detail to fill in the
selection (bottom). A
small amount of cloning
will clean up the patches
that Image Doctor got
wrong.

Paving Over Tears and Holes

297

Fig. 8-40 I used
Photoshop’s Healing
Brush to accomplish the
repair in the top fi gure. I
repaired the bottom
fi gure with the Patch
tool. Each tool has its
strengths and
weaknesses.

Doctor would’ve been to select different parts of the tear for individual
correction, depending on the kind of background it was against. I did
this with a single selection to show how powerful this fi lter is.
Some of Photoshop’s built-in tools can do good jobs, too. This is not
a place to use the Spot Healing Brush because it doesn’t know which
background textures to use to replace the tear. When there are lots of
different nearby textures, as in this photograph, the brush will frequently guess wrong. The regular Healing Brush is a much better choice
because you tell it what area to sample to fi ll in the tear. Picking a sample
point adjacent to the tear worked well everywhere except along the tire,
where the smooth curves were hard to reproduce. The result is shown
in Figure 8-40, top.

HOW TO REPAIR A
TORN NEGATIVE
(continued)

298

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

HOW TO REPAIR A
TORN NEGATIVE
(continued)

The Patch tool will also work well on tears. Much like the Healing
Brush, it lets you select what part of the photograph is going to be
blended over the area you want to repair. Because the tool previews the
results as you drag the selection around, it’s easy to find which area and
alignment work the best. For my taste, the Patch tool behaves a little too
much like the Clone tool; it reproduces the sampled detail a bit too faithfully, and sharp-eyed viewers may notice repeated detail. You’ll want to
follow up with tools like the Clone tool and the Spot Healing Brush to
“randomize” the results a bit, but the Patch tool doesn’t leave too many
artifacts to clean up (Figure 8-40, bottom).
Using the Spot Healing Brush

HOW TO REMOVE
CHEMICAL AND
WATER SPOTS

✓

The Spot Healing Brush does come in handy when I’m trying to clean
up isolated holes or spots. Take its name at face value; it works a lot
better when you “dab” it on a bad spot than when you try to paint an
extended line with it. Figure 8-41 shows a fi lm scan of a photograph
that has a bunch of chemical or water spots in the middle of it
(enlargement, lower left). I removed 90% of them easily with the Spot
Healing Brush.
Every so often the brush introduced an odd or inappropriate element
into the photograph. Usually clicking again on the same spot or near its
edge would get rid of the blemish the brush had introduced with the
fi rst click. Occasionally it made it worse. Don’t sweat it; just plan on
making a second pass with the cloning tool to manually repair the few
blemishes that the brush couldn’t take care of or created. Don’t forget
that you can make a history snapshot of the photo before you start in
with the Spot Healing Brush, so you can use the History Brush to paint
out any really bad mistakes the Spot Healing Brush makes.
Clearing the Debris
Eliminating Tarnish

HOW TO ELIMINATE
TARNISH AND
SILVERED-OUT SPOTS

Old silver photographs are prone to tarnish and bronzing—shiny or iridescent metallic-looking spots on the surface of the print, especially in
the shadows. Tarnish is a vexing problem in restoration because it casts a
veil over everything, but with the right techniques it is very easy to fix.
✓
Figure 8-42, left, shows a B&W photograph that’s tarnishing out.
There’s a bluish sheen to the blacks, and much of the print has a lowcontrast, milky haze over it. The reduced contrast was easy to fi x with
a good scan (middle photograph); I got rid of some of the yellow in the
highlights and improved the density in the shadows. It didn’t get rid of
the tarnish, but it did make it clearer.
The way to attack tarnish is to isolate it with a mask. I applied the
Hue/Saturation settings in Figure 8-43 to exaggerate the color of the

Clearing the Debris

299

Fig. 8-41 Water spots
deface this negative,
seen enlarged at lower
left. The Spot Healing
Brush is the ideal tool for
repairing this damage. It
removes 90% of the
spots perfectly (lower
right).

Fig. 8-42 The photograph on the left is not badly faded, but it is yellowed and severely tarnished.
The middle fi gure shows the scan I made of this photograph that eliminated the stain and made the
photographic image less yellow. This made the tarnish bluer. I accentuated the color of the tarnish
with the Hue/Saturation settings in Figure 8-43 to produce the fi gure on the right.

300

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-43 These Hue/
Saturation settings
exaggerate the color
difference between the
tarnish and the
underlying photograph,
so that it will be easier
to prepare a tarnishselecting mask. The
Master adjustment of
+40 points exaggerates
both the slightly yellow
tone of the photograph
and the blue color of the
tarnish. The Cyan
adjustment of +59 points
kicks up the saturation in
the tarnish even more.

HOW TO ELIMINATE
TARNISH AND
SILVERED-OUT SPOTS
(continued)

tarnish so that it would be easier to pick out. That produced Figure 8-42,
right.
Many Photoshop tools can create a mask out of color distinctions:
the Color Range selection, the Channel Mixer, or Image Calculations
(see Chapter 7, Making Masks, page 252). The Asiva Selection plug-in
is a favorite of mine. Figure 8-44 shows the Asiva Selection control panel
with the curves I used to isolate the tarnish. The top curve restricted the
selection to colors in the blue part of the spectrum, excluding undamaged parts of the photograph that were yellowish. I set the saturation
curve to reject areas than had very little or no saturation, as those were
untarnished. The resulting selection is shown in Figure 8-45.
I created a Curves adjustment layer with that selection. It would be
just as effective to apply the curves directly to the selection, but the
adjustment layer left me free to try out different curves that I could revise
later. Knowing that the tarnish was greenish blue and lighter than the
surrounding areas, I developed my curves by trial-and-error (Figure 846). The RGB curve doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a big effect; it darkens the shadows
some and ensures that the darkest tones really are near-black. The green

Clearing the Debris

301

Fig. 8-44 This screenshot of the Asiva Selection plug-in at work shows the settings I used to create the tarnish-selecting mask
in Figure 8-45. I restricted the range of selected colors to the blue tones characteristic of the tarnish. I also adjusted the Saturation
curve to reject any tones that were not at least moderately saturated. This did a good job of isolating the tarnish for repair.

curve shifts the color substantially to the magenta, having the least effect
in the highlights and the greatest effect in the shadows. The really big
change occurs in the blue curve. I dragged the black point way in and
added another control point, which pulled the whole curve down, so
that everything except for the very whitest tones was shifted very
strongly to the yellow.
The resulting photograph in Figure 8-47, left, is tarnish-free. The
details in the hair and the texture of the moire silk blouse are once again
rich and clear. The restoration isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t complete; there are yellow stains and
marks on the surface of the print, and the paper texture is distracting,
but Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve fi xed the worst problem. In the next section, I get rid of the
stains and marks. On page 305 I subdue the annoying paper texture,
which will fi nish up this restoration.

HOW TO ELIMINATE
TARNISH AND
SILVERED-OUT SPOTS
(continued)

302

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-45 This is the
fi nished mask that I used
to repair the photograph
in Figure 8-47.

Picking the Right Color for B&W
In Chapter 7, page 244, I created masks using channels and the Channel
Mixer to exploit color differences between B&W photographs and the
damage infl icted on them. I took advantage of colors or combinations of
colors that especially emphasized the damage over the photograph.
Those same tricks can be inverted to minimize the damage, using
complementary colors. For example, damage that is especially visible in
the green channel will have a strong magenta component. That means
it will not be very visible in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;magentaâ&#x20AC;? (red + blue) channel. I would
use the green channel to build a mask from because it shows the damage
so clearly. Conversely, if I wanted to suppress that damage, I would use
the Channel Mixer to combine the red and blue channels and exclude
the green channel.
I used the colors green and magenta merely as examples. The precise
color that works best will depend on the photograph and the damage.
If the damage looks reddish compared to the photograph, check out the
red channel; if it looks cyan, then check out the green and blue channels. What you can usually count on when restoring a B&W photograph
is that one channel will show the damage and stains on the photograph
less than the other channels.

Clearing the Debris

303

Fig. 8-46 This Curves
adjustment eliminates
the tarnish from Figure
8-42 when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s used in
conjunction with the
tarnish-selecting mask
from Figure 8-45. The
RGB curve slightly
darkens the shadows, the
green curve makes the
tarnish more magenta,
and the blue curve makes
it much yellower. That
eliminates the light blue/
cyan cast that the tarnish
had and makes it blend
in perfectly with the
photograph (Figure 8-47,
left).

304

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-47 The fi gure on
the left shows the
photograph from Figure
8-42 after tarnish repair.
Tone and contrast are
good, but there’s some
yellow-orange stain, and
the paper texture is
distracting. The stain is
least visible in the red
channel, so I copied that
into the middle fi gure
and used the Clone tool
to repair the minimal
amount of residual
damage. The fi gure on
the right shows the fully
restored photograph
after I removed the paper
texture with Neat Image
(Figure 8-50).

HOW TO MINIMIZE
TAPE STAINS

That’s especially true when you’ve done a good scan that produces a
reasonably neutral-toned photograph. Stains and other defects usually
have a different color from the photograph proper. Once you’ve fi nished
with the kinds of repairs that require a full-color image (like the tarnishreducing work I did in the previous section), look at the individual color
channels for the photograph and select the one that looks the cleanest
for further restoration work.
In the portrait in Figure 8-47 the stains are yellow-orange in color.
When I inspected each color channel, I saw that the red channel displayed hardly any of the stains. I copied that channel into a new fi le
that is shown in the middle column of Figure 8-47. I used the Clone tool
to clear out the white marks of the top and remove a couple of small
dark spots from the picture; it literally took just a few minutes’ work to
make it look this good.
In Chapter 7, page 258, I demonstrated several ways to mask Figure
✓
8-48 to select the tape for repair. In preparation for that repair, I wanted
to reduce the discoloration in the taped area. I did that by manipulating
the Hue/Saturation control. The tape was least visible in the red channel,
hardly a surprise given the color of the stain, so I went to the Channels
palette and clicked off the “eyes” for the green and blue channels (Figure

Clearing the Debris

305

Fig. 8-48 The tape stain
in this photograph has a
strong red-orange color,
which means that it is
least visible in the red
channel (see Figure
7-43).

8-49), so that I was only viewing the red channel. The RGB channel
was still highlighted, so all the channels were active.
I launched the Hue/Saturation control and began moving the Saturation slider up. That changed the intensity of the red in the tape stain
and varied its appearance in the red channel. By watching how the
appearance of the tape changed in the preview, I could choose the right
saturation setting to minimize its impact. Normal saturation showed the
tape darker than the surrounding area. Moving the saturation up to
around +40 did a good job of lightening it.
Dealing with Textured Prints
Paper texture isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really damage, because it was an intentional part of
the original print. Print textures, though, usually look bad when they
are reproduced on a flat-fi nish paper. If you want to restore an original,
textured photograph to a fresh textured print, you will get a much
better-looking print if you print a clean image on textured paper than
if you try to print the illusion of texture. Consequently, I treat texture

HOW TO MINIMIZE
TAPE STAINS
(continued)

306

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-49 I can make
strongly colored stains
less visible with an
appropriate saturation
increase. The screenshot
at the top shows the red
channel from Figure 8-48
along with the Hue/
Saturation control panel.
The tape stain is
modestly darker than the
rest of the photograph.
Increasing the saturation
by +42 points makes the
typical density of the
stain in the red channel
the same as that of the
unstained photograph.
That reduces the amount
of work needed to repair
this photograph.
Increasing the saturation
too much makes the
stain look lighter than
the rest of the
photograph (bottom).

as if it were widespread damageâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;something I want to erase from the
prints while doing as little destruction of photographic detail as
possible.
Like tarnish and other surface blemishes, texture tends to get
enhanced in scans. I talked in Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the
Computer, page 126, about rephotographing textured prints on a copy
stand as one way to get around the paper texture problem. Here, I deal
with getting rid of paper texture in scans.

Clearing the Debris

307

Fig. 8-50 The Neat
Image plug-in for
Photoshop can clean up
paper texture in a scan
just as well as noise. I
eliminated the texture
from Figure 8-47 without
compromising fi ne
photographic detail by
adjusting the highfrequency Noise
Reduction Amount.
Turning this all the way
down to 0% ensured that
fi ne details like the
eyelashes and catch
lights wouldn’t be
filtered out. Most of the
paper texture was still
eliminated, resulting in a
very good restoration
(Figure 8-47, right).

The print in Figure 8-47 cleaned up nicely with the tarnish mask ✓ HOW TO REMOVE
SURFACE
(page 302). To get rid of its texture I pulled up Neat Image, a very pow- PRINT
TEXTURES
erful noise reduction plug-in (see Chapter 3, Software for Restoration).
Neat Image profi led a section of the background and created a filter that
could cancel out the texture just as if it were noise (Figure 8-50). The
fi lter was so effective that it completely eliminated the paper texture at
its default settings, but it also softened the fi nest detail in the
photograph.
I wanted to retain the fi ne detail. I did that by using the noise reduction sliders. I set the sliders’ high-frequency Noise Reduction Amount to
0%. I left the mid- and low-frequency settings at 100%. That meant that
the fi lter still had full effect on the coarse paper texture but left fi ne
detail (and texture) alone.
Applying the fi lter produced the photograph in Figure 8-47, right.
All of the image detail is still there, but almost all of the paper texture
was removed. There’s a very fi ne “tooth” to the photograph, from the
high-frequency texture I allowed to get through, but it’s not distracting
or intrusive.
Figure 8-51 was a tougher case. This school portrait was printed
on that “honeycomb” paper that was commonly used for inexpensive

308

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-51 This 30-yearold high school portrait
is printed on honeycombtextured paper. Once the
color and contrast are
restored, the paper
texture is very intrusive
because of the increased
contrast (Figure 8-52,
left).

HOW TO REMOVE
PRINT SURFACE
TEXTURES
(continued)

portraits. It created some real restoration problems for me. Because this
photograph wasn’t very faded, overall color and tone correction was
pretty easy. I made a good scan and some modest curve corrections to
get the photo in Figure 8-52, left. Unfortunately, as the lower enlargement makes clear, the honeycomb texture really messed up the photograph’s appearance.
I turned to Neat Image once again and, sure enough, it did great job
of extracting a texture profi le from a background area that completely
eliminated the honeycomb. Because this texture was sharp and well
defi ned, I couldn’t turn down the high-frequency noise fi ltering and still
remove it. In fact, I had to turn up the noise level detection for the high
and mid-frequencies to successfully grab all of the pattern (Figure 8-53).
I was able to turn the low-frequency noise fi lter and noise reduction all
the way down, and that helped a little to preserve detail. Figure 8-52,
center, is the result. The enlargement shows that the fi lter completely
eliminated the paper texture and didn’t blur the print detail very much—
but the print wasn’t that sharp to begin with. I’d like to fi x that.
I turned to another favorite plug-in of mine, Focus Magic. Focus
Magic restores sharpness to every part of the photograph, not just edges,
so you don’t want to use it on a noisy image because it will enhance
the noise along with everything else. But Neat Image had done such a

Clearing the Debris

309

Fig. 8-52 The photograph and enlargement on the left show the color-restored version of Figure 8-51. This photograph looks
great except for the annoying paper texture. Neat Image, using the settings in Figure 8-53, eliminates the paper texture entirely,
but it also loses some of the fi ne detail in the photograph (center). Focus Magic (Figure 8-54) not only restores that lost sharpness,
it actually brings out a bit more detail in the photograph than was visible in the original (right).

good job of removing the paper texture that there was little of it left for
Focus Magic to exaggerate. I set the blur width to 9 pixels, as shown in
Figure 8-54, and let Focus Magic do its work. The fi nal photograph,
in Figure 8-52, right, is both sharper and smoother toned than the original was.
Picture Window has a built-in tool, called “Advanced Sharpen,” that
works pretty well on paper texture. What makes it useful for texture
removal is that it has three stages of operation: noise reduction, speck
removal, and sharpening. To attack the paper texture, I used the fi rst
two operations and didn’t do any sharpening.
In Figure 8-55, I applied the Advanced Sharpen tool to the school
portrait. Under noise reduction, I set a blur radius of about 2.5 pixels
and adjusted the noise detection sliders at the bottom of the control panel
until they did a good job of picking up most of the paper texture without

HOW TO REMOVE
PRINT SURFACE
TEXTURES
(continued)

310

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-53 These Neat
Image settings eliminated
the paper texture in
Figure 8-52. The texture
is very fi ne and sharp
edged, so the highfrequency Noise Filter
and Noise Reduction
settings were turned up
to maximum. Because
the texture contains no
low-frequency
components, I turned
that Noise Reduction
setting off.

Fig. 8-54 Focus Magic
effectively sharpens up
the photograph in Figure
8-52, right. It did more
than simply restore detail
that was removed by
Neat Image; it made the
photograph sharper and
more detailed than it was
originally.

Clearing the Debris

311

Fig. 8-55 Picture
Window’s Advanced
Sharpen transformation
includes Noise Reduction
and Speck Removal tools
that can minimize paper
textures. In the top
screenshot, I’ve set the
Noise Reduction sliders
to include most of the
detail in the paper
texture without
compromising real
photographic information
too badly. That produces
the results seen on the
right. I can further
improve that result in the
Speck Removal stage by
instructing the tool to
remove only the light
specks. That picks out
the highlights from the
texture that weren’t
eliminated by Noise
Reduction.

312

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Fig. 8-56 Very fi ne paper texture, as in the photograph on the left, can be attacked with Photoshop’s own filters. The Dust &
Scratches filter, with a 2-pixel radius and a threshold of 4, produced the middle fi gure. The paper texture is fi ner than the fi nest
detail in the photograph, so it is eliminated while photographic information isn’t. Median filtering can also reduce or eliminate
paper texture (right), but it has to be used very carefully to avoid blurring the photograph.

HOW TO REMOVE
PRINT SURFACE
TEXTURES
(continued)

starting to eat away at the detail in the photograph. The preview window
in the upper right showed that this stage would suppress (but not entirely
eliminate) the paper texture without damaging fi ne detail too much.
After I applied noise reduction, I advanced to the speck removal stage.
Because the texture was significant, I set the speck size to 10 by 10 pixels
and told the fi lter to remove only light specks (the highlights from the
texture). I moved the threshold slider up to almost 100% so it would
fi nd low-contrast texture, and I set the detail detection histogram slider
so that the fi lter grabbed the texture but not too much else. As you can
see in the preview window, the results are not as perfect as with Neat
Image, but I’ve eliminated most of the paper texture without compromising the detail in the photograph.
When the paper texture is fi ner than the image detail in the photograph, sometimes Photoshop’s fi lters can handle it. The Dust & Scratches
fi lter will do the job without costing you too much detail. Figure 8-56
shows before (left) and after (middle) close-ups of a textured print scan.
The “after” version was generated by the Dust & Scratches fi lter with a
radius of 2 pixels and a threshold of 4.
The Median fi lter does an extremely good job of suppressing fi ne
paper texture, but it strongly attacks real image detail, too, so use it
carefully. I fi ltered the photograph in Figure 8-56, right, with the Median
fi lter at a radius of 2 pixels. All of the paper texture wasn’t suppressed
at this radius, but increasing the radius to 3 visibly blurred the
photograph.

Clearing the Debris

313

Fig. 8-57 Dark mildew
specks and spots, like
those afflicting the
photograph in fi gure (a),
can be filtered out in
stages. A 10-pixel
Median filter produced
fi gure (b). There are
broad, faint dark areas in
the sky because the
Median filter averaged
the dark mildew into the
blue sky. To get rid of
those, I assigned the
Median filtering to the
History Brush, reverted to
the previous state, and
used the Brush in Lighten
mode to paint over the
mildew in the sky (fi gure
c). This has no effect on
the blue sky, but it
lightens the mildew
considerably. I applied
the filter a second time
and used the History
Brush over the residual
mildew in fi gure (c). The
result, fi gure (d), is free
from mildew blemishes,
and the sky is restored to
its natural tones.

314

CHAPTER 8 Damage Control

Repairing Mildew

HOW TO ERASE
MILDEW SPOTS

Mildew damage is a serious problem for original photographs. Mildew spots
and filaments are composed of microorganisms that eat the photographic
emulsion and grow. Mildew will expand just like bacteria in a culture dish.
Photos that are starting to suffer mildew damage will only get worse, so
they should get priority for treatment (or digital restoration).
Moderate mildew damage takes the form of long dark fi laments or
clusters of small dark spots, like closely spaced freckles. The long mildew
fi laments look like fi ne squiggly scratches in a scan, and you can treat
them as you would other scratches. Because mildew spreads from single
spores that take hold, the fi laments grow out like the roots of a plant,
so they are very close together. Throughout this and the preceding
chapter, I’ve introduced techniques for dealing with dense networks of
fi ne cracks, and those methods will work just as well on mildew.
Dense groups of mildew “freckles” cause many restorers problems
because they aren’t as well defi ned as the fi laments and they can cover
enough of a photograph to seriously distort average tonal values. That
makes them harder to remove with simple fi ltering, and they are far too
numerous to remove by cloning. Here’s a trick that works well when
mildew attacks a broad uniform area of the image, which is where it is
most visible.
Figure 8-57a shows the corner of a slide that is developing mildew
freckles. (This figure is heavily sharpened to make it easier to see the
mildew spots, so ignore white halos around edges, because those are just
sharpening artifacts.) The sky along the left side and upper part of the
photograph is fi lled with numerous dark spots. You could just blur them
out, but it wouldn’t work well. Because the average tone including the
mildew is darker, if you just blurred them out, there would be a broad
dark blemish in the sky. In Figure 8-57b, I applied a Median fi lter with
a 10-pixel radius to the photograph. The freckles were obliterated, but
that faint dark blemish I warned about showed up.
✓
The way to fi x that is to paint in the effect of the fi lter using the
History Brush set to Lighten mode. I assigned the History Brush to the
Median fi lter state, reverted to the previous state, and painted over the
mildew with the History Brush. It lightened the mildew spots but didn’t
have any effect on the sky in between.
I did that on Figure 8-57c, and most of the mildew is gone. There’s
still a faint impression of it because the fi lter isn’t painting in undamaged
blue sky but an average of blue sky and dark mildew. The way to completely eliminate the mildew is to repeat the process. In Figure 8-57d, I
applied the Median fi lter again and used the History Brush in Lighten
mode to paint over the mildewed area a second time. This completely
eliminated all evidence of the mildew and restored perfect sky color. If
two passes aren’t sufficient, you can repeat this Median fi lter lightening
process as many times as needed to get a clean image.

C H A PTE R 9

Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements
How-To’s in This Chapter
How
How
How
How
How

to
to
to
to
to

scan very contrasty photographs
eliminate the dots from newspaper photographs
increase sharpness and fine detail in a photograph
make a photograph look like a tintype
combine scans to make one large photograph

Every photograph is unique, and so is every photo restoration job. Many
photographs have common characteristics, though, so I’ve concentrated
my instruction to this point on the tasks that benefit the greatest number
of photographs. I’ve grouped those tasks into broad categories and chapters of shared purpose, like color correction.
Still, I can’t ignore the inherent uniqueness that makes every restoration job an interesting and stimulating challenge, nor can you. For your
part, you want to be flexible and versatile if you’re going to restore photographs effectively and efficiently. For my part, I want to introduce you to
a bunch of specific tricks and techniques that I’ve found especially useful
but don’t fit neatly into one of those broad categories that I laid out.
Save Time by Using Your Keyboard and Your Mouse
I’ve noticed that most people who work on the computer have deeply
ingrained mouse and keyboard work habits. Some people are very mouse
and menu oriented. When they need to save a fi le in Photoshop, their
instinct is to go to the File menu, click on it, scroll down to Save, and
click that. OK, that works, but just pressing control-S (under Windows)
does exactly the same thing, and you don’t have to move your mouse
(or even let go of it). Not having to navigate a hierarchy of menus is a
lot less disruptive to the thought processes.
Frankly, I’m more mouse oriented than not. I’m not the person to
lecture you on not knowing how to play the keyboard like a virtuoso.
I don’t seem to be able to remember many more than six keyboard

315

316

CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

shortcuts at one time, a small fraction of the number available. But, just
knowing that handful saves me a huge amount of time. I can remember
that control-shift-S activates “Save As” so I can save a fi le with a new
name, Y switches to the History Brush and S to the Clone tool when I’m
retouching, and the spacebar activates the Hand tool when I’m lassoing
a large area. The [ and ] keys expand or contract my brush; the { and }
make it harder or softer. Each of these is just a tiny little time-saver, but
together they add up to a lot of minutes each day.
I’m not going to prescribe which keyboard commands you should
learn. Learn to pay attention to yourself. Notice when you’re doing an
operation repetitively. When you do, check out the menus and help files
to see if there’s a keyboard shortcut. Some shortcuts will show up if you
move the cursor over the item and wait for a helpful little pop-up box
to appear. Those are great memory-joggers (like when I forget that the
Clone tool is S because the Crop tool is C).
To those of you who are already keyboard masters, don’t forget
to use the mouse! Double-clicking on the background brings up the
Open fi le selection window. When you have a tool selected for use, rightclicking the mouse will bring up many useful options for it. Rightclicking on the title bar at the top of an image window brings up
Duplicate, Image Size, Canvas Size, and Page Setup commands. It’s much
faster than scrolling through menus, and it saves having to remember
more keyboard shortcuts.
While I’m talking about speeding up your Photoshop workflow, let
me remind you to do two things. Go into your preferences. Set them to
add central crosshairs to the brush tip cursor and assign the mouse scroll
wheel to zoom the image. Little changes but big improvements.
Capturing a Long Density Range in a Scan by
Stacking Images

HOW TO SCAN VERY
CONTRASTY
PHOTOGRAPHS

As I’ve said in other chapters, some kinds of originals present real scanning problems. Old B&W fi lms and plates can have such a high density
range that a single scan can’t capture it all. Transparencies that are
severely faded in one channel can throw off a fi lm scanner’s exposure
control and make it difficult to get good density information in all three
channels from a single scan. Even with my fi lm scanner set for maximumdensity-range capture, I sometimes can’t get a single scan that holds
detail in both highlights and shadows.
✓
Picture Window’s Stack Images Transformation can blend up to five
images together. Photographers use it to combine bracketed exposures
from a digital camera to produce one extended-range photograph. I use
it to extend the dynamic range of my scanner. It’s so much better than
Photoshop’s “Merge to HDR” operation that I never use that.
Figure 9-1 shows a badly faded slide of Richard Nixon from the early
1950s. The combination of extreme fading in the slide and very uneven

Capturing a Long Density Range in a Scan by Stacking Images

317

Fig. 9-1 This slide of
then-Vice President
Richard Nixon is 50 years
old. It’s lost most of its
cyan dye but almost none
of its yellow. This
combination of extreme
fading and color shift
makes it diffi cult to make
a scan that captures the
full density range of the
slide.

lighting in the photograph made for a very difficult scan. I adjusted my
scanner’s exposure settings to favor the capture of highlight, midtone,
and shadow detail in separate scans.
I saved those three scans as 16-bit TIFF fi les and opened them up
in Picture Window (Figure 9-2). The Stack Images Transformation
control panel is visible in the upper right. I assigned the dark TIFF fi le
to Image 1, the intermediate fi le to Image 2, and the light fi le to Image
3. In many cases you’ll get a good result from combining just light and
dark scans.
Hit the Apply button and Stack Images creates a default blend, shown
in Figure 9-3, top. This looks like the medium-exposure TIFF fi le but
with substantially better highlight and shadow detail. Customizing the
blending curves is better still. Each image in the stack has its own density
mask curve. That curve controls how different tones in that image will
be blended into the mix.
Image 1 had excellent highlight detail and no shadow detail, so I
wanted the blend to make use of its highlight detail. I adjusted its curve
so that it is 0% in the shadows and 100% in the highlights. Density
Mask 2 pulled in 100% of the midtone information from the medium
scan but tapered off in the highlights and shadows. Density Mask 3 used
all of the shadow detail from Image 3, which had the most shadow
information of the three fi les. It used almost none of the highlight information because that was blown out in the scan.

HOW TO SCAN VERY
CONTRASTY
PHOTOGRAPHS
(continued)

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-2 Picture Window’s Stack Image transformation is a superior tool for combining multiple scans into a single long-densityrange image. This screenshot shows me combining three scans made with different exposures (upper left) into a single merged
image, visible in the Preview window. At the upper right is the Stack Images control panel. Below that are the curves I created to
control how the densities of the different scans get blended together. Mask 1 is for the darkest scan. I don’t want to use any
shadow detail from that scan, but I want all of its highlight detail. So I set the mask curve to 0% in the shadows and 100% in
the highlights. The intermediate scan has good midtones but worse highlights and shadows than the other two scans, so Mask
2’s curve picks up 100% of the midtones and drops off to 0% at both ends of the curve. The lightest scan has great shadow detail
and no highlight detail; Mask 3 has a curve that uses 100% of the shadow detail and falls to 0% in the whites.
HOW TO SCAN VERY
CONTRASTY
PHOTOGRAPHS
(continued)

The blend preview is the lower right photograph in the quartet shown
on screen; the other three are the original scan TIFF fi les. The fi nished
blend is shown in Figure 9-3, bottom. It holds all of the detail that was
in the original slide and substantially reduces the harsh contrast produced by the on-camera flash.
With a high-quality composite image at my disposal, good restoration
became possible. Figure 9-4 shows what I achieved by applying the
DIGITAL ROC plug-in to the blended image, making some Curves adjustments and doing a bit of dodging and burning-in.

Capturing a Long Density Range in a Scan by Stacking Images

Fig. 9-3 The top fi gure is the best single scan I could make of the slide in Figure 9-1. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too contrasty,
with blown-out highlights and shadow detail that is too dark. The bottom fi gure shows the merged
image I created with Stack Image in Figure 9-2. I applied color and tone corrections to produce
Figure 9-4.

319

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-4 Applying
DIGITAL ROC and some
Curves adjustments to
Figure 9-3, bottom, gets
me this photograph. The
color and tones are now
approximately correct,
and I’ve retained the full
range of detail that was
visible in the slide.

Descreening a Halftone

HOW TO ELIMINATE
THE DOTS FROM
NEWSPAPER
PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs in newspapers and magazines are not continuous-tone
images; they are halftones. Halftones are made up of a fi ne pattern of
dots that, from a distance, looks like continuous tones. In Chapter 4,
Getting the Photo into the Computer, page 104, I discussed the best way
to scan halftones. Now it’s time to talk about how to remove the dot
pattern; this is called descreening.
✓
Your scanner software probably has a descreening fi lter built into it.
Figure 9-5 shows a halftone photograph I scanned at 1200 ppi. The
greatly enlarged section on the left in Figure 9-6 shows the individual
dots that make up the photograph. On the right is the scan I got when
I turned that fi lter on. It reduced the dot pattern but didn’t eliminate it
entirely. We now need to turn to our software tools, which will do a
better job than this.
Several different Photoshop (or Picture Window) fi lters can remove
the halftone screen entirely, but choose wisely. Figure 9-7a shows the
effect of applying the Dust & Scratches filter to the photograph. It completely eliminated the screen pattern, but it cost me some sharpness, and
it made the contrast much worse. Dark areas became completely black,
losing shadow detail; highlights got blown out.
Gaussian Blur worked very well (Figure 9-7b). The photograph is dot
free, sharp, and has good tonal detail in both the highlights and the

Descreening a Halftone

321

Fig. 9-5 This halftone
photograph is in pretty
good physical shape. It’s
just a little dark and has
a few minor stains. The
big challenge is getting
rid of the halftone
screen, shown enlarged
in Figure 9-6.

Fig. 9-6 The fi gure on
the left is enlarged from
Figure 9-5, to show the
halftone dots that make
up the print. One way to
reduce the visibility of
those dots is to turn on
the Descreen option in
your scanner software
(right). This doesn’t
eliminate the dots, but it
softens them. Other
software tools (Figure 97) can eliminate them
entirely.

shadows. The Box Blur (Figure 9-7c) fi lter does an even better job
because it’s a little sharper.
I used Focus Magic, the third-party plug-in I recommended in Chapter
3, Software for Restoration, to bring out even more detail from the photograph (Figure 9-7d). The best radius setting for this fi lter depends on
the spacing of the dots; some radii will enhance the dot pattern and also

HOW TO ELIMINATE
THE DOTS FROM
NEWSPAPER
PHOTOGRAPHS
(continued)

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-7 Here are four
different ways to get rid
of halftone dots. Figure
(a) uses the Dust &
Scratches filter. That
method loses sharpness
and quite a bit of shadow
detail. Gaussian Blur (b)
works much better, and
the Box Blur filter (c)
better still. Both of these
preserve the detail and
tonality of the original
photograph. Figure (d) is
best of all; I created this
with Focus Magic,
carefully adjusting the
sample radius until the
dots completely
disappeared.
HOW TO ELIMINATE
THE DOTS FROM
NEWSPAPER
PHOTOGRAPHS
(continued)

sharpen the fi ne detail, but others will actually suppress it. Find the right
setting by checking the Preview window. Correctly applied, Focus Magic
revealed amazing amounts of detail. Figure 9-8 shows the entire cleanedup, dot-free, sharpness-enhanced, and tone-corrected photograph.
Getting the Most Detail out of Your Photograph
Many photographs hold a wealth of hidden detail that can be revealed
by the right tools. Good software techniques can do more than just
sharpen up edges; they can bring out fi ne details that were invisible in

Getting the Most Detail out of Your Photograph

323

Fig. 9-8 Here’s Figure 95, after descreening with
Focus Magic, some
Curves adjustments, and
a bit of dodging to clean
up the stains.

Fig. 9-9 This photograph
has some physical
damage, but otherwise it
is in great shape. It has
excellent tonality and no
noise or grain. As the
enlargement on the right
shows, it could be
sharper. There are ways
to achieve that!

the original print. In some cases they can rescue unacceptably blurry
photographs; in others they take an inadequately sharp photograph and
improve the detail enough to let you enlarge it substantially.
The ideal candidate for detail enhancement is a photograph that has
good tonality and little visual noise: no heavy texturing, visible grain,
or extensive scratches or cracks. Minimal noise is important because all
of these techniques enhance fi ne noise along with fi ne detail. The best
of them work mostly on the photographic detail and don’t enhance noise
too much, but there will always be some increase. If you start out with
a visually noisy original, you will not have a good-looking photograph
after you’ve sharpened it up.
Figure 9-9 is a great candidate for detail enhancement. As the enlargement on the right shows, the photograph has some cracks and scratches

324

CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

HOW TO INCREASE
SHARPNESS AND FINE
DETAIL IN A
PHOTOGRAPH

Fig. 9-10 I used the Dust
& Scratches filter in
conjunction with the
History Brush to get rid
of the dust and cracks in
Figure 9-9, prepping it
for sharpening.
Photoshop’s standard
tool, Unsharp Mask
(right), isn’t the best
choice for that (see
Figure 9-11a).

and a scattering of dirt and dust, but there’s no fi lm grain, paper texture,
or unevenness to the tones. The original photograph was only 2 inches
by 3 inches, so I scanned it at 1200 ppi with the intention of enlarging
it. I cleaned up the specks and cracks with the Dust & Scratches fi lter,
using the settings shown in Figure 9-10. Assigning that fi lter to the
History Brush, I painted out the flaws.
✓
There are several good ways to bring out detail in this photograph.
A poor way is to use Photoshop’s Unsharp Mask, which I did using the
fi lter settings shown in Figure 9-10 to produce Figure 9-11a. That emphasized edges, but it didn’t actually bring out any new detail.
Photoshop’s new Smart Sharpen fi lter, with “Lens Blur” selected,
does much nicer fi ltering than Photoshop’s simpler sharpening tools. Be
sure to check “More Accurate” to get the best results (Figure 9-12).
Figure 9-11b shows what this fi lter accomplished. It’s much more natural
looking than the photograph created with the Unsharp Mask fi lter; even
delicate detail in the couch and the baby’s clothing was brought out.
There’s a slight increase in overall image noise (likely not visible in
reproduction), but it’s not enough to be bothersome; it just looks like
very fi ne fi lm grain.
Better still is Focus Magic. I applied it with a radius of 7 pixels and
the Image Source set to “conventional” to produce Figure 9-11c. There
is very little additional noise but a real increase in fi ne detail. This photograph doesn’t merely look sharper, it actually is sharper.
The fi nal enhancement tool I used was PixelGenius’s PhotoKit Sharpener utilities. This large collection of automated routines provides myriad
ways to sharpen a photograph with minimal increases in noise and other
kinds of visual garbage. For Figure 9-11d, I used the Creative Sharpener
module and ran the Super Sharpener option.

Fig. 9-11 There are different ways to sharpen up Figure 9-9. (a) The Unsharp Mask option, using
the settings from Figure 9-10, doesn’t really improve fi ne detail. It just exaggerates edges and produces the well-known “oversharpened” look. Photoshop’s new Smart Sharpen filter works much
better. I selected “Lens Blur” to create fi gure (b). It’s just as sharp as fi gure (a), but it looks much
more natural. Figure (c) is the product of Focus Magic running with a 7-pixel radius. This filter produces a real increase in fi ne detail and sharpness, not just the illusion of one. Last, fi gure (d) shows
PixelGenius’s PhotoKit Sharpener utilities, a collection of useful automated scripts that do sharpening
in multiple layers that you can modify to suit the particular photograph.

Fig. 9-12 Here are the
Smart Sharpen settings I
used to create Figure 911b. I’ve selected “Lens
Blur” as the filter method
I want to use and
checked “More Accurate”
because it produces
better-looking results.

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-13 The Shadow/
Highlight tool improves
the detail in Figure 9-11c.
Using this tool with the
settings from Figure 9-14
makes both highlight and
shadow details clearer.

HOW TO INCREASE
SHARPNESS AND FINE
DETAIL IN A
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

Sharpening isn’t the only way to bring out detail. I created Figure 913 by taking the photograph I sharpened with Focus Magic and running
it through the Shadow/Highlight fi lter using the settings shown in Figure
9-14. (See Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 145, for complete instructions
on how to use this fi lter; it has a lot of different options!) This opened
up shadows and tamed highlights in a fashion that made detail in those
parts of the photograph much clearer. The results are not actually one
bit sharper than Figure 9-11c, but the improved contrast reveals the
details much more clearly.
What Do You Do with a Tintype?
Tintypes raise interesting questions about your goals in performing
a restoration. Is your objective to make the photograph look the way it
did originally, or to make it look like a good photograph by today’s
standards?
A tintype by its very nature is extremely dark. It’s a B&W silver negative on a piece of black-enameled metal (usually iron). The silver image
looks lighter gray than the black enamel so the photo appears as a positive. The range of tones runs not from white to black but from dark gray
to black. It’s not what we expect to see in modern photographs.
Figure 9-15 shows an old tintype. Figure 9-16 shows the histogram
my scanner software generated for that tintype, as well as the level settings I used to make a full-range scan. You can see from the histogram

What Do You Do with a Tintype?

327

Fig. 9-14 The Shadow/
Highlight settings that
produced Figure 9-13. I’m
doing just a small
amount of shadow
enhancement but a
moderate amount of
highlight enhancement. I
kicked up the Midtone
Contrast a little bit to
ensure that the
photograph didn’t look
too flat.

Fig. 9-15 Tintypes are
naturally very dark. The
“positive” image is the
result of laying a darkgray silver negative
image on top of a black
substrate. The scanner
software histogram in
Figure 9-16 shows how
dark the original is.

328

CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-16 This histogram for Figure 9-15 is typical of tintypes. All of the tones are compressed into
the dark end of the scale. I’ve moved the scanner software Levels sliders in to bracket that narrow
range in order to capture as much information as possible. It’s a good idea to scan tintypes in 16-bit
mode. The result is shown in Figure 9-17.

HOW TO MAKE A
PHOTOGRAPH LOOK
LIKE A TINTYPE

that the tintype’s extremely dark; this is certainly a case in which you’d
want to scan in 16-bit mode.
Figure 9-17 is the scan I made that extracted the maximum tonal
information from the tintype. The red channel showed the clearest
image with the least dirt and scratches, so I used it to do the partial
restoration you see in Figure 9-18, left. At this point, I’m very close to
having a good-looking photograph; I still have to remove some scratches
and dust specks and make some fi nal adjustments to the tones in the
shadows and the background.
✓
This doesn’t look anything like the original tintype. It looks like a
modern photograph, with modern-photograph tonality. Figure 9-18,
right, shows my simulation of the tintype “look.” I got that by applying
the curves in Figure 9-19 to darken the restored image. So, which version
is correct? That will depend on your objectives—on whether this is supposed be an aesthetically pleasing restoration or a historically accurate
one.
Stitching Scans Together
Sometimes you’ll want to restore a photograph that is larger than your
scanner can accommodate. Scanning a photograph in sections is not
difficult, but there are two problems to address when stitching sectional
scans together: Some misregistration and slight differences in exposure
might exist between the separate scans.
You won’t want the scanner making different exposure and contrast
adjustments for each section of the photograph, so turn off as much of
the scanner’s automatic exposure control as you can. Ideally, the exposures for all the sections should be absolutely identical. In practice, this

Stitching Scans Together

329

Fig. 9-17 The scan I
made of Figure 9-15
using scanner settings
from Figure 9-16. This
doesn’t look at all like a
proper tintype, but it
provides the maximum
amount of information to
work with for a
restoration.

Fig. 9-18 What’s the right way to restore a tintype? The fi gure on the left is the restoration I did
from Figure 9-17, treating the image as if it were a conventional photograph. Consequently, I aimed
for a photograph with good contrast and a full range of tones from black to white. On the right is
the new “tintype” I created by adding a Curves adjustment layer that used the settings in Figure
9-19. This preserves the look of the original for a more historically correct restoration.

330

CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-19 A simple Curves adjustment turns a normal-looking photograph into one that looks like a
tintype. The curve on the left darkens all the tones and lowers the contrast, so that the “whites”
become grays, just as they are in a real tintype. The curve on the right adds a bit of yellow to the
photograph because silver negative images are usually a little bit warm in hue. The result, shown
Figure 9-18, right, is a faithful reconstruction.

Fig. 9-20 I needed to scan this 6-cm by 17-cm negative in three sections because it was too big for my scanner. Here are the
three overlapping scans I created. There is a slight color mismatch; there’s also a little bit of geometric distortion. (Original photograph copyright by Stuart D. Klipper.)

HOW TO COMBINE
SCANS TO MAKE
ONE LARGE
PHOTOGRAPH

doesn’t always happen. The internal scanner calibration from scan to
scan may not be identical. You should expect to see some slight exposure
mismatches between the sections.
Figure 9-20 shows three sectional scans I made from a 6-cm by 17✓
cm negative. This magnificent photograph of an iceberg by Stuart D.
Klipper had been damaged and was in need of repair. First I aligned the
scans so that they’d blend seamlessly when I merged them. I copied them
into separate layers of a single fi le and set the layer opacities to 50% so
that I could see how they overlapped. Figure 9-21 shows a close-up of
the overlap between the center and right-hand scans. I registered the

Stitching Scans Together

Fig. 9-21 Overlapping and aligning the middle and right-hand scans shows that they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t quite
match up. The iceberg is perfectly superimposed at the top, but the wavelets at the bottom of the
photo are misaligned. This is visible as a doubled image. I can fi x this with Photoshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Transform/
Warp tool (Figure 9-22).

331

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-22 In this
screenshot of the Warp
tool in action, I selected
a rectangular region in
the right-hand scan and
created the Warp grid. By
adjusting individual
points in the grid, I can
transform the left side of
the scan so that it
matches the middle scan
perfectly. Warp creates a
smooth transition from
this bit of distortion into
the rest of the rightmost
scan.

HOW TO COMBINE
SCANS TO MAKE
ONE LARGE
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

two scans at a point at the top of the iceberg. The doubled images at the
bottom of the overlap band indicate that one of the scans has a little
geometric distortion.
In Photoshop, the Warp operation is the best way to fi x that. It superimposes a 3-by-3 mesh on the layer (Figure 9-22). You can grab a point
in the image and drag it to a new position and the rest of the layer
smoothly warps to accommodate the change. Alternatively, you can
manipulate control points at the corners of the mesh by their little soliddot handles and warp the mesh that way.
If Photoshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Warp adjustment doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t give you enough control over
the geometry of the image, turn to Picture Window, which has a much
more powerful Composite Transform. You can set up to 63 control points
in the Composite Transform mesh using the multipoint option. The
Composite Transform does scaling, rotation, and warping all in one
operation.
Once I had the three scans aligned, I set their opacities back to 100%.
Now I had to match their colors. In Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 129,
I told you about clicking on a photograph to create sample points in the
Info window and to assign control points to curves (Figure 5-16). I set
four sample points in the left-hand scan layer, right next to the bound-

Stitching Scans Together

333

Fig. 9-23 This screenshot shows me setting up the sample points that will let me match the color between the left (Layer 2) and
middle (Layer 1) scans in Figure 9-24. I set four sample points near the boundary between the scans that encompass a broad
range of tones and colors.

ary with the center scan layer (Figure 9-23). All four points are actually
in the region where the scans overlap; you can’t see the overlap in the
illustration because the upper layer opacity is 100%. That overlap’s
important because I use the sample points to compare the RGB values
in the two layers.
I picked those points to represent a broad range of tones. The RGB
values for the sample points are shown in the Info window. I made a
screenshot of the Info window and pasted it into a new image window
so that I could refer to the RGB values for the left-side scan layer while
working on the middle scan layer. (If you don’t want to clutter your
computer screen with unnecessary images, you can print the screen with
those RGB numbers onto a piece of paper for reference.)
I switched to the middle scan layer and launched the Curves tool. (I
could have created a Curves adjustment layer associated with the scan

HOW TO COMBINE
SCANS TO MAKE
ONE LARGE
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-24 This screenshot shows me making a Curves adjustments to the green channel of the middle scan that corrects sample
point #4. Compare sample point #4â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s values in the Info windows in Fig. 9-23 and this fi gure. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve adjusted the Green curve for
that point to make the two values equal (a value of 59). Doing this for all four points in all three channels produces a very good
match between all the colors in the scans.

HOW TO COMBINE
SCANS TO MAKE
ONE LARGE
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

layer if I wanted to preserve the option of going back and readjusting
the curves later.) I shift-control-clicked each of the sample points, creating four control points in the Curves window (Figure 9-24).
To match the colors between the two layers, I moved the control
points in the individual curves so that their output values were the same
as the ones I had recorded for the left-hand scan. For example, Figure
9-24 shows me working on sample point #4 on the green curve. That
had a value of 59 in the left-hand scan, so I typed 59 into the output
box for that curve point. In this manner I entered all of the sample-point
RGB values for the left-hand scan into the curve control points for the
center scan.

Improving the Original

335

Fig. 9-25 The top fi gure shows the three merged scans after color matching and alignment. This appears to have been a single,
seamless scan. The bottom fi gure shows the fully restored photograph after color and tone correction with a Curves adjustment
layer. (Photograph copyright by Stuart D. Klipper.)

The two scans now blended perfectly; as long as scans don’t differ
too much to begin with, this four-point adjustment scheme can produce
a perfect color match. I repeated this procedure for the middle and righthand scan layers. That gave me a seamless blend between all three sections of the photo, as you can see in Figure 9-25, upper. All the fi le
needed was overall color correction to produce a lovely, fi nished photograph (Figure 9-25, lower).
Improving the Original
Just what do I mean by “improving the original”? A recurring theme
throughout this book has been my admittedly perfectionist quest to
create the best possible print of a photograph. What do I think makes
for a better print?
• Rich and more accurate color
• More accurate tonal rendition

HOW TO COMBINE
SCANS TO MAKE
ONE LARGE
PHOTOGRAPH
(continued)

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

• Better density range in the print
• Better and sharper detail
Many original photographs weren’t all that great to begin with, even
before they started to deteriorate. Your typical amateur photograph is
not usually perfectly composed, perfectly exposed, perfectly in focus,
and perfectly printed. Professionally made photographs may have an
overall higher level of quality (although many don’t), but the photographer can only do so much. Photographic fi lms and papers don’t have
perfect color and tonal rendition. Even the most skilled photographers
are limited by the materials with which they work.
As long as I don’t need to produce a historically accurate restoration,
I can’t resist making little improvements. It may be sharpening up the
photograph and bringing out fi ne detail that wasn’t apparent, or perhaps
correcting the color and exposure so that they’re exactly right instead
of merely being close to what they should be. Sometimes I’ll bring out
highlight and shadow detail in a previously too-contrasty photograph or
eliminate excessive fi lm grain and an annoying paper texture. I can even
dodge, burn-in, and crop to improve composition.
Do not misunderstand; I am not saying the originals were bad photographs! By and large they’re very good photographs. They’re just not
perfect photographs, and what is not perfect can often be improved,
especially with the power of digital manipulation. Review the many
restorations I present throughout this book, especially the complete
restorations that I present in the next chapter (Chapter 10, Examples).
You’ll see that I often go beyond the limitations of the original to produce
a better photograph than existed before. This is where the “Art” I talk
about in the Introduction and Chapter 1 comes in—this is where you
think like an artist and a photographer, not like a technician. Here are
two examples to illustrate this.
In Chapter 3, Software for Restoration, page 61, I used a self-portrait
by noted photographer Tee Corinne (Figure 9-26a) to introduce the
power of the DIGITAL ROC Photoshop plug-in. It’s just the kind of
problem that ROC was designed to solve. Figure 9-26b is a very faithful
rendition of the original photograph, and is indeed almost entirely the
plug-in’s doing.
Consulting with Tee on this matter, we both agreed that while this
may accurately portray what the color film recorded 30 years ago, that
didn’t make it the best possible interpretation of this photograph. Films
of that era tended to be a little contrasty and low in color saturation. The
color rendition was a bit cool for Tee’s taste because the portrait was photographed by bluish sky light. We agreed to improve on the original.
First I reduced the excessive contrast in the midtones to bring out
more highlight and shadow detail. When I did this restoration, I used
an “inverted-S” curve, as I discuss in Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page
148, to get Figure 9-26c; today I’d probably use the Shadow/Highlight

Improving the Original

337

Fig. 9-26 (a) This selfportrait by noted
photographer Tee
Corinne is barely 30
years old, but it only
exists as an impermanent
duplicate slide that has
faded badly. DIGITAL
ROC does an amazing job
of restoring the color in
faded slides (b). This is
faithful to the original,
but I can make it better.
Figure (c) shows the
results of applying an
inverted-S curve to
improve highlight and
shadow detail and
moderate contrast in the
midtones. In fi gure (d), I
increased the saturation
by +20 points. This is
almost perfect.
(Photograph copyright by
Tee Corinne.)

adjustment. The tonal rendition is much nicer, but lowering the midtone
contrast made the saturation worse. I increased the saturation by 20
points with the Hue/Saturation adjustment and made a slight Curves
adjustment to brighten the midtones a bit. That produced Figure 9-26d,
which I think is a much better version of the photograph than the
original. If it were my photograph, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d probably stop here. But Tee
wanted slightly warmer hues, so after a little more work with Curves,
we got to Figure 9-27. That is now the fi nal and defi nitive version of this

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CHAPTER 9 Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

Fig. 9-27 This is the
fi nished restoration,
just as Tee and I would
have it. It is a slightly
warmed-up version of
Figure 9-26d; a modest
Curves adjustment did
the trick. This looks
better than the original
photograph did.
(Photograph copyright by
Tee Corinne.)

photograph, one that Tee and I both feel is better than the original she
made 30 years ago.
Figure 9-28 is the cleaned-up version of the photograph I sharpened
earlier in this chapter (page 323). As a straight restoration, it’s almost
fi nished. A couple of faint folds in the paper are visible in the background, but once I erase those, it will be a pristine version of the original
photograph. I think it could be a much better photograph than this!
Since I had already determined that I could sharpen and extract
considerably more fi ne detail from the photograph, I decided to crop it
to produce a much better composition (Figure 9-29). That wouldn’t have
been possible without the sharpening techniques I used; the original
was only 2 inches by 3 inches, and it wasn’t very crisp. But Focus Magic
pulled up all sorts of fi ne detail for me, and the Shadow/Highlight adjustment brought out the details in the children’s clothing and mother’s hair
and dress very nicely.
To fi nish off this photograph, I did a little dodging and burning-in,
evening out the lighting on the walls so there wasn’t a distracting bright
spot in the upper left and dodging the mother’s left side so you could
better see her arm and clothing. That was it!

Improving the Original

339

Fig. 9-28 This is the
nearly restored version of
Figure 9-9. It’s been
sharpened and cleaned
up, except for a few faint
folds in the paper. It’s a
good restoration of the
original photograph, but
that photograph can be
improved (see Figure
9-29)!

Fig. 9-29 Here’s the new and improved version of Figure 9-28. I cropped away the extraneous and
distracting material to produce a composition that focused on the mother and children. Next I dodged
the mother’s left side to even out the lighting and improve the detail. Finally, I burnt in the upper
left corner to remove a hot spot on the wall. What was previously an acceptable snapshot is now a
really great one. I could have eliminated the “on-flash look” in the skin tones, but I wanted to preserve the snapshot feel of the original, rather than make this look like a professionally done
portrait.

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CHAPTER 9

Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements

I intentionally left the “on-flash look” alone. I could’ve retouched the
faces and the clothing to get rid of the hot spots, thus making this look
like a very professional photograph. I didn’t because I wanted to preserve
the snapshot feel of the photograph. I simply made it look like an exceptionally good one.
Up to this point in the book, I’ve been instructing you in myriad
specific techniques for doing restorations. In the last section of this
chapter, we started to pay more attention to the overall purpose and
ultimate results of restoration. That’s what the next chapter, Examples,
is entirely about: how all these specific methodologies work together to
produce complete and fi nished restorations.

C H A PTE R 10

Examples
The examples in this chapter are case studies in restoration. Each example takes a photograph, step by step, from its original form to its fully
restored glory. Within the limits of space I’ve left nothing out. No magic
takes place behind the curtain.
As I said back in Chapter 1, what I enjoy most about doing photo
restoration is going for “the best of all possible prints” from a damaged
photograph. I love to take the restoration process to its limits and see
just how perfect a photograph I can get. The examples in this chapter
are precisely these kinds of perfectionist performances. They aren’t necessarily complicated, but they are all as masterful and complete as I
know how to make them.
What I want to convey in this chapter is not a set of marching orders
but some understanding of how one gets from A to Z. It’s about more
than noting the specific tools that I use to solve each problem in the
restoration. It’s as much about the order in which I tackle the problems,
and how I decide what path to follow to get to my goal.
This doesn’t mean you have to be a perfectionist! You needn’t travel
all the way from A to Z to get great results; you can stop at P and have
restorations that are more than good enough to make most people very
happy. Chapters 5 through 9 are fi lled with examples that don’t go to
the ultimate limit of the restoration art, but they still look good.
Always remember that these are examples, not prescriptions. Give
the same photograph to 10 different restorers, and they will take as
many different approaches to fi xing it. When you read these examples,
I hope you’ll sometimes fi nd yourself thinking, “Wouldn’t it have made
as much sense for Ctein to address this problem this other way?” The
answer is very likely “Yes!” There is never one right answer, and the
more right answers you can come up, with the more tools you’ll have
at your disposal when you encounter a new problem.
Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate
The 4-inch by 6-inch glass plate negative shown in Figure 10-1-a was
made in the 1920s in Venice or Lido, Italy. It’s tarnished, but otherwise

341

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-a This glass
plate negative dates from
the 1920s. The silver
image is in excellent
condition, albeit very
dense, but the plate has
been broken right down
the middle!

the silver image is in great shape. While the negative is very dense,
typical for photographs of the time, the edges of the plate are clear and
only slightly yellowed. The only thing that prevents me from printing
this plate conventionally on a Grade 0 paper is that it’s broken in two!
After masking off the area surrounding the image on the plate (to
reduce flare, see Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the Computer, page
113), I scanned the plate at 1200 ppi in 16-bit RGB mode. As the scanner
software histogram shows (Figure 10-1-b), almost all the tonal information is concentrated in the lower 20% of the scale. The scattering of
values higher than that corresponds to light leaking through the cracks
and some small missing patches of emulsion.
After a couple of trial scans, I settled on a white level of 100 and a
midpoint (gamma) adjustment of 2.4. That’s an extreme gamma, but
experiments showed that it produced a good-looking negative on the
screen. I wasn’t too worried about the precise curve shape because I was
working in 16-bit mode. Glass plates should be scanned with the emulsion side of the plate in contact with the platen because that’s where
the scanner’s plane of focus is. That means a scan will come out leftright reversed, so after I completed the scan I fl ipped the image
horizontally.
Figure 10-1-c shows the resulting scan; it’s much clearer than Figure
10-1-a, which shows an unadjusted scan. The histogram in Figure 10-1-d
shows that I have an acceptable range of information, with no clipping
of the shadow or highlight detail in the photograph.
The RGB scan is nearly 200 MB, and there’s no useful color information in the photo, so I used Channel Mixer to convert the scan to gray-

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

343

Fig. 10-1-b The scanner
software histogram
shows that this is a very
dense negative. I moved
the white slider all the
way down to a value of
100 and the midtone
slider to a setting of 2.4
to expand the tones in
the dense parts of the
negative as much as
possible.

Fig. 10-1-c Scanning
the glass plate with the
settings shown in Figure
10-1-b produces a muchimproved image. Now
detail is clearly visible
throughout the tonal
range of the negative.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-d The histogram of the scan in Figure 10-1-c shows a considerably improved tonal range
over the original. Although the range is still restricted to about one-third of the available values,
thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enough data in a 16-bit scan for me to create a good fi nished print.

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

345

Fig. 10-1-e These are
the Channel Mixer
settings that convert
Figured 10-1-c from RGB
color to grayscale. I’m
using a mix of 50% red
and 50% green because
these two channels have
substantially less noise
than the blue channel
(see Figure 10-1-f), and
the combination of the
two produces better
tonality than either of
them alone.

scale to speed up further work. I used the Channel Mixer settings in
Figure 10-1-e to mix equal parts of just the red and the green channels.
Then I converted the RGB monochrome image to a grayscale one.
As you can see in the enlargement of the white dress and fi ngers in
Figure 10-1-f, the blue channel is much noisier in this scan than the red
and green channels, so eliminating it got me a monochrome image with
better tonality and less noise than any of the individual channels. This
is also a cleaner result than I would get by simply desaturating the scan
or directly converting the mode to grayscale.
The two pieces of the plate were out of alignment by a few hundredths of an inch, so I created a selection around the top piece and
nudged it into alignment with the bottom piece. I started by selecting
the crack between the pieces. The pure white gap was easy to select using
the Magic Wand tool (Figure 10-1-g). I used a broad tolerance setting of
20 with “Contiguous” checked, so that I didn’t accidentally pick up any
stray clear spots in the plate while grabbing as much of the crack as
possible. A few clicks of the Magic Wand along the length of the crack
selected it all.
I expanded that selection by 2 pixels to ensure that I had included
all the glow at the edges of the crack and inverted the selection.
That left me with the two pieces of the plate separately selected.
Using the Lasso in subtractive mode, I circled the lower selection and
eliminated it.
With the upper piece alone selected, I held down the control key,
which turns the cursor into a nudging tool. I used to the arrow keys to
nudge the upper piece a dozen pixels to the right and a couple of pixels
down. Figure 10-1-h, right, shows the improvement in alignment.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-f This
enlargement of Figure
10-1-c shows how
highlight detail is
improved and noise
reduced by using the
Channel Mixer. The blue
(B) channel has much
worse noise than the
red (R) and green (G)
channels, so it gets
discarded. Channel Mixer
(see Figure 10-1-e)
combines 50% red and
50% green channels
to produce the mixed
channel, lower right. This
new grayscale image has
better tonality and less
noise than any of the
individual RGB channels.

Fig. 10-1-g Selecting the
crack between the plates
is easy because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pure
white. I used the Magic
Wand tool with a
Tolerance of 20 in
Contiguous mode. The
selection is indicated by
the dashed line in the
screenshot. I expanded
the selection by a couple
of pixels to include the
edges of the crack and
inverted it to select the
pieces of the glass plate
and exclude the crack.

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

347

Fig. 10-1-h The fi gure on
the left is the original
scan. The two pieces of
the plate are misaligned
by a few hundredths of
an inch. Applying the
selection that I made in
Figure 10-1-g to one of
the pieces of the plate, I
nudged the top half of
the plate over until it
was correctly aligned
with the bottom half
(right).

Because itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easier to see white spots against a dark background than
vice versa, I decided to clean up the dust and scratches while the photograph was still in negative form. I used the Dust & Scratches History
Brush trick from Chapter 8, Damage Control, page 268, with a 10-pixel
fi lter radius and a threshold of 5.
Almost all of the garbage I had to clean up was lighter than the photograph, so I set the brush to Darken mode, which minimized its impact
on fi ne detail and image grain. After working my way through the photograph and getting rid of all the light specks, I switched the brush to
Lighten mode and picked off the few dark spots and scratches.
Next I inverted the image to produce a positive and cropped and
rotated it to make the horizon line horizontal. That yielded Figure 10-1-i.
I added a Curves adjustment layer with the settings shown in Figure
10-1-j. This approximated what a good print would ultimately look like,
but it showed that there was considerable light falloff toward the edges
of the plate (Figure 10-1-k). To even out the plate exposure I created a
mask (Figure 10-1-l) for the Curves adjustment layer with the circular
Gradient tool.
I set the foreground color to white and the background color to a gray
with a luminance of 65 and drew a gradient line from the center of the
image to the corner. This mask weakened the effect of the Curves adjustment layer toward the edges of the image, so that it darkened the edges
less. The result, seen in Figure 10-1-m, is much more even. I can deal
with the small amount of residual darkening in the corners by dodging
the photograph later.
The increased contrast in the adjusted photograph revealed a new
problem. The very bright light that shone through the crack during scan

348

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-i Now that the
scan has been aligned
and cleaned, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
inverted it to produce a
positive image. The
photograph is very pale
and flat; the Curves
adjustment in Figure
10-1-j will fi x that.

Fig. 10-1-j This Curves
adjustment produces
Figure 10-1-k. I moved
the white point in to
restore the highlights to
near-white. This curve
greatly increases contrast
in the midtones and
highlights in exchange
for sacrifi cing it in the
shadows. The midtones
are what give the
photograph brilliance and
life, so good contrast
there is more important
than maintaining shadow
contrast.

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

349

Fig. 10-1-k I applied the
curve from Figure 10-1-j
to Figure 10-1-i in a
Curves adjustment layer.
That produces very good
tonal quality. Increasing
the highlight contrast
this much makes light
falloff at the corners of
the photograph very
noticeable. I fi xed that
with an adjustment layer
mask in Figures 10-1-l
and 10-1-m.

Fig. 10-1-l I created this
mask for the Curves
adjustment layer in
Figure 10-1-k using the
circular Gradient tool. It
fades the effect of the
curve from Figure 10-1-j
so that it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t darken
the photograph as much
in the corners.

had caused flare that created a dark halo around the crack in the positive
image. This made the job of erasing the crack considerably more complex,
so I tackled it in stages with several different tools.
The easiest step was removing the crack from the sky, where the
crack was a thin line with very little halo. Since there was no sky detail
other than grain, I just cloned the nearby sky into the crack to make it
go away.
Next in difficulty was the ocean. There the crack was heavier and
there was some evidence of a halo. There was also the blurry detail in
the water to worry about. I decided first to reduce the strength of the
crack.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-m The masked
Curves adjustment layer
does a nice job of
restoring proper tonality
to this photograph at the
same time that it evens
out the lighting. The
residual darkening in the
corners can be cleaned
up with a little bit of
dodging.

Fig. 10-1-n The fi rst
stage in repairing the
crack in the plate is to
select it using the Magic
Wand tool. The selected
area is outlined by the
dotted line in this
screenshot.

I selected the blackest parts of the crack with the Magic Wand,
expanded the selection by 3 pixels, and feathered it by 2 pixels (Figure
10-1-n). I applied the Median fi lter with a radius of 85 pixels; that fi lled
in the crack with the average brightness of the surrounding pixels
(Figure 10-1-o). This made it easier to manipulate the crack in later
steps.
Once I had minimized the intensity of the crack, the Spot Healing
Brush in Photoshop CS2 was up to the task of erasing it from the water.
I set the brush to a radius about 20% bigger than the halo with a hardness of 0. Brushing the tool along the cracks in short segments, it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t
take long to erase it.

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

351

Fig. 10-1-o I applied the
Median filter with a very
large radius of 85 pixels
to the selected crack.
That filled in the
selection with the
average of the
surrounding pixels. This
makes it easier for other
tools like the Spot
Healing Brush to replace
the selection with
surrounding detail and
blend it in.

Fig. 10-1-p The Spot
Healing Brush has
replaced the selected
crack with wave details
from other parts of the
ocean. All that remains
of the crack over the
water area is a dark
smudge.

Occasionally the Spot Healing Brush produced patterns and textures
that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t merge well with the surrounding waves. Usually I could make
those go away with a second pass from the brush at a different angle. If
the blend still wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t perfect, I used the cloning tool at 30% strength to
blend in the boundary between the healed area and the surrounding
image.
Now I was ready to tackle the residual halo where the crack had been
in the ocean and the halo around the crack in the dress (Figure 10-1-p).
Dealing with that required nothing fancier than the Dodge tool. I set
the tool diameter to about the width of the halo, the hardness to 50%,
and the strength to 7%. I ran this tool back and forth along the halo
until it was mostly gone, being careful not to overdo it. Then I dropped
the radius down to about a fi fth of the width of the halo and carefully
brushed out the residual bits, including the strong dark edge right next
to the crack across the dress (Figure 10-1-q).

352

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-q Dodging
the dark smudge in the
previous photograph
completes the task of
erasing the crack from
the water. The Dodge
tool was also effective at
removing the dark halo
that borders the crack
over the woman’s dress.

Fig. 10-1-r Now that I
reduced the crack to a
thin white line in Figure
10-1-q, it’s a simple
matter to erase it entirely
from the blouse using the
Clone tool.

This left a simple, narrow blank area running across the dress that I
could easily fi ll in with the Clone tool. I made a few more light passes
with the Dodge tool to remove the last traces of shadows from the
repaired area, which gave me the seamless image in Figure 10-1-r.
Now I turned my attention to making the photograph look as good
as possible. I used a Dodge tool of large radius to reduce the light falloff
at the edges and corners of the photograph. I didn’t eliminate it entirely,
because a small amount of vignetting focused attention on the central
subject of the photograph. I just reduced the darkening enough so that
it wasn’t an obvious artifact and distraction.
There was some residual garbage in the sky—light scratches, small
defects in the emulsion, that sort of thing. I used the Magic Wand to
select only the sky and shrank the selection by 6 pixels to ensure that I
had not captured any of the foreground. Then I applied the Dust &
Scratches fi lter with a radius of 20 and threshold of 2. Since the sky held

Example 1: Repairing an Old Glass Plate

353

Fig. 10-1-s This
photograph is fully
repaired. The crack is
gone, and the dust, dirt,
and scratches are all
cleaned up. The tonal
rendition is good, and
I’ve done some dodging
and burning-in to even
out the lighting a little
more. Just a few more
fi nishing touches will
make it perfect.

no fi ne detail, the large radius didn’t destroy anything except defects,
and the threshold of 2 preserved enough of the grain so that there was
no visible difference in texture between the fi ltered and unfi ltered parts
of the photograph.
Figure 10-1-s shows a fully repaired photograph. I saved this version
as a good record of the original photograph; now I wanted to take it to
the next level and come up with a good “print” of it, just as I would in
the darkroom.
I used the Burn tool set to 6% and a very large radius to lightly burn
in the top half of the sky and the foreground sand. That further focused
the viewer’s attention on the subject of the photograph. The change was
very subtle, almost subliminal, but it made a big difference in the
aesthetics.
Next I switched to the Dodge tool and with a brush of small radius
lightened the woman’s face where it was shadowed by her hat. I paid
special attention to her eyes, giving them a little more dodging to bring
them out and lightly dodged her hair to better separate its tones from
her hat. I also lightened the shadow under her nose that fell across her
upper lip and her teeth. Lastly, I dodged the right side of her face and
her neck to open up the tones there.
My goal in all of this was to produce a more pleasing but still accurate
rendition. I didn’t cosmetically alter her appearance or eliminate the
look of someone posing in the bright sun, rather I produced a rendering
that was more attractive because it was more like what we would see.
Figure 10-1-t shows a close-up of her face before and after these simple
but important local corrections. These fi nal adjustments produced Figure
10-1-u, a lovely and flawless photograph from a “lost” glass plate.

354

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-1-t On the left is an enlargement of Figure 10-1-s. The direct sunlight produced a harsh
photograph and buried much of the woman’s face in shadow. Judicious use of the Dodge tool opens
up the shadows and evens out the lighting on her face just enough to make it look more natural to
our eyes. Little touches like this make the difference between a good and a great restoration.

Fig. 10-1-u The fi nal
print! Some minor
adjustments to the
Curves layer perk up the
whites in the woman’s
dress and make her stand
out more clearly from the
background. Burning-in
the sand at the bottom
and dodging her face add
to her sense of presence.
This file makes a
wonderful-looking print.

Example 2: Repairing Color with a Good Scan
Throughout this book I’ve emphasized the importance of getting a good
scan to make your restoration job easier and better. This example is a
most extreme case of that; getting the scan right got me 90% of the way
to great tone and color (see also Chapter 6, Restoring Color, page 183).
The original was a 3-inch by 5-inch color snapshot made in 1966
(Figure 10-2-a). It was in very good shape for a 40-year-old color pho-

Example 2: Repairing Color with a Good Scan

355

Fig. 10-2-a This mid1960s color photograph
is yellowed and
signifi cantly faded but
otherwise is in very good
physical condition. A
careful scan can correct
most of the fading.

tograph. It was little bit dirty and slightly cracked, and there were some
paper fibers stuck to the surface but little physical decay. The print had
a moderate amount of yellow staining and overall had faded considerably but uniformly.
I scanned the photograph on my flat-bed scanner with the Input
Levels settings shown in Figure 10-2-b. I set the sliders for the black and
white end points in the red, green, and blue channels so that they tightly
bracketed the histograms. That wiped out the highlight stain and gave
me a good range of tones from near-white to near-black. Pulling in the
blue channelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;whiteâ&#x20AC;? point far enough to eliminate the yellow stain,
however, made the print come out too blue overall, so I raised the midpoint on the blue levels to make the color balance more neutral. The
fi nished scan, in Figure 10-2-c, is an amazing improvement, just from
a carefully adjusted scan!
I decided that the color was not saturated enough and the overall hue
was a little bit pink for my taste. So I added a Hue/Saturation adjustment
layer (Figure 10-2-d) and played around with the settings until I got

356

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-2-b These are
the scanner software
histograms and Input
Levels settings that
produce Figure 10-2-c
from Figure 10-2-a. I
adjusted the black and
white sliders to bracket
the range of tones in
each color channel. I also
shifted the midtone slider
for the blue channel to
0.8, which improved the
color balance.

Fig. 10-2-c This
corrected scan of Figure
10-2-a looks very good.
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most of the way
toward having fully
restored and corrected
color.

Fig. 10-2-d These Hue/
Saturation adjustments,
applied in an adjustment
layer, further improve the
color, producing Figure
10-2-e. The Master
adjustment improves the
overall saturation and
makes the skin tones a
little less pink by shifting
the Hue +2 points. The
Cyans adjustment
substantially increases
the saturation in the
greens and blues because
they were very weak
even in the corrected
scan.

Figure 10-2-e. The Master saturation is up 20 points, and I shifted the
hue by +2 degrees, which moved the pinks and the reds a little bit toward
the yellow and warmed up the print. That Hue adjustment would also
move the greens and blues a little bit toward the purple, but there was
so little of that in the photograph that I didn’t care about them. The
greens and blues, though, were still undersaturated, so I went to the
Cyan channel and moved the spectrum sliders at the bottom so that all
colors from green through blue were selected. Then I increased the saturation by 27 points. This pumped up the colors in the quilt and added a
bit more variation to the background (Figure 10-2-e).
I didn’t have to use an adjustment layer for this, by the way. It made
it easier for me to fiddle around with the Hue/Saturation settings to
figure out what I wanted.
The color was almost there, but it was a bit too rosy for me. Moving
the eyedropper around the picture confi rmed that impression; even the
white shoes had red values that were substantially too high (meaning
there wasn’t enough cyan in the image). So I launched the Curves tool,
pulled up the red channel, and made the single-point adjustment you
see in Figure 10-2-f. That tempered the rosiness a bit to give me the very
natural color you see in Figure 10-2-g.

Example 2: Repairing Color with a Good Scan

359

Fig. 10-2-f This singlepoint Curves adjustment
gets rid of the excess
pink from Figure 10-2-e,
as shown in Figure
10-2-g.

Fig. 10-2-g This
photograph has excellent
color. The Curves
adjustment from Figure
10-2-f makes the whites
neutral and gives the
tot a natural, childlike
complexion. Everything
is done except a small
amount of damage repair
and detail enhancement.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-2-h This
enlargement from Figure
10-2-g shows the white
paper fi bers that are
stuck to the print (top).
It took very little work to
clean them up with the
Dust & Scratches filter. I
just assigned the filter
to the History Brush,
reverted to the previous
History State, and
brushed out the clumps
of fi bers. The result is
shown in the bottom
fi gure.

The next-to-last thing I had to do was clean up the garbage. I used
my favorite tool for that, the Dust & Scratches fi lter applied via the
History Brush. I set the fi lter for a radius of 10 pixels with a threshold
of 4. That aggressively wiped out all of the dust and dirt and most of the
paper fibers. Setting the History Brush to that state, I painted the fi lter
over the background. I could use a very large-radius brush because the
background was out of focus and the fi lter had no effect on it except for
correcting the damage.
Cleaning up the child and the quilt required the usual small-radius
brush so that I didn’t accidentally wipe out real details, but since the
background constituted more than half of the photograph, I spent relatively little time on cleanup. Figure 10-2-h is an enlarged section of the
photograph that shows what the dirt and paper fibers looked like before
and after cleaning up with the Dust & Scratches fi lter brush. The fi lter
didn’t erase larger fiber clumps, but it wasn’t much work to obliterate
those using the Clone tool.
This fi le was ready to archive and print out at its original size, but I
decided to add one last refi nement—enlargement. When I saw what a
high-quality, clean scan I could get from this photograph, I decided to
scan it at 1200 ppi instead of the 600 ppi that would’ve been more appropriate. The 1200-ppi scan didn’t hold more image detail than a 600-ppi
scan would; there wasn’t any fi ner detail to be captured. What it did was
capture four times as many pixels for Focus Magic to chew on (Figure
10-2-i).

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

361

Fig. 10-2-i Focus Magic
can improve the
sharpness of this
photograph to make it
even better than that of
the original print. Setting
the source for Grainy
Image minimizes
enhancement of noise
and film grain. That’s
important in this
photograph because I
want the child’s skin to
remain baby smooth.

Fig. 10-2-j This
enlargement from Figure
10-2-h shows the
photograph before (top)
and after (bottom)
running the Focus Magic
filter from Figure 10-2-i.
See how much better
the detail in the eyes
and mouth is! This
photograph can be
enlarged 50% to 100%
when it’s printed out,
and it will still look nice
and sharp.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

I set the Focus Magic image source to “Grainy Image” because that
minimizes the fi lter’s sharpening of fi ne grain and noise. I didn’t want
to exaggerate textures in that smooth baby skin. I turned on “Remove
Noise” just in case there were some dirt specks I missed, set the Blur
Width to 7 pixels, and let the fi lter run. What a difference that fi lter
made (Figure 10-2-j)! Now the photograph is sharp enough to take up
to 6 inches by 10 inches and still stand up to close inspection.
Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job
In this example, the original photograph (Figure 10-3-a) was made by
a chain department store’s portrait studio over 20 years ago. Poorly
processed and taped into a cheap cardboard matte, the print hung on
the family home wall for two decades. Consequently, it had faded something terrible. Although it looks like a nearly monochrome red image,
there was enough color information left to do an excellent digital
restoration.
When I started doing professional-quality restoration in 1998, this
was the fi rst job I ever did. The computer was slow with little memory,
I could only work with 8-bit fi les, and all the work was done under
Photoshop 4. That meant no adjustment layers, no History States, no
Healing Brushes, and no clever third-party plug-ins. That’s why I’m

Fig. 10-3-a This is a
chain-department-store
portrait made in the
1970s. It hung on a wall
in this oval matte for 20
years before I received it
for restoration.

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

363

Fig. 10-3-b Removing
the matte reveals that
the photograph has
faded unevenly. Where it
was struck by light, the
fading is more severe.

Fig. 10-3-c The scanner software histogram on the left, for Figure 10-3-b, illustrates the severe color
shift in this photograph. The blue channel hasn’t faded much, but the green channel has lost considerable shadow density, and the red channel barely spans the upper half of the histogram range.
The histogram on the right shows the improvements possible with the adjusted scan of Figure 10-3-d;
now all three color channels have data that spans most of the range of values.

including it in this book. The methods and tools I used to restore this
photograph are available in just about any image processing program;
this is as close to “generic” technique as you can get.
Figure 10-3-b shows an uncorrected scan of the unmounted print.
There was almost no information in the red channel below middle gray,
and the green channel showed considerable loss, as can be seen in the
scanner software’s histogram (Figure 10-3-c, left). The cyan dye image
had faded the most, plus there was some dye loss in the magenta. Stain-

364

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-3-d The adjusted
scan has considerably
better tone and a wider
range of colors than the
original photograph. The
outline of the oval matte
is very obvious; thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
what needs to be fi xed
fi rst.

ing had given the print an overall orange cast as well. I adjusted the
scanner level sliders, expanding the red and green ranges to compensate
for the dye loss and setting the white points for the green and blue ranges
to compensate for the yellow-magenta stain. There was now a much
better overlap between the three color channels, and the red data was
spread out enough to give a decent range of tones to work with (Figure
10-3-c, right), indicating that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d get a much more neutral overall color
rendition in the scan (Figure 10-3-d).
The part of the photograph hidden by the cardboard matte had faded
differently from the central oval exposed to light. In preparation for
eliminating that difference, I created an oval mask (Figure 10-3-e) that
precisely matched the outline of the faded area in the photograph. The
Elliptical Marquee tool created a selection that approximately fit the
oval. I saved that selection in its own channel and made it visible as an
overlay on top of the photograph. I used white and black Brush and
Pencil tools to refi ne the edge of the mask so that it exactly matched the
oval area in the photograph.
After selecting the central oval area, I pulled up the Curves tool and
created customized red, green, and blue curves to correct the differential
fading. To begin with, I picked adjacent near-black areas in the tree on
either side of the oval boundary and added adjustment points to the

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

365

Fig. 10-3-e I created an
oval matte using the
Elliptical Marquee tool
in Photoshop. The oval
matte cutout isn’t a
perfect ellipse, so I
painted along the edge
of the mask with a hardedged brush, using white
and black tones, until
I had an outline that
precisely matched the
cardboard matte.

individual curves corresponding to the values in the area inside the oval.
I lowered those adjustment points until the areas inside and outside the
boundary matched.
Next I picked a dark midtone area in the mountains in the backdrop
and added adjustment points to the three color curves corresponding to
the values there. I raised or lowered those points until the mountain
tones matched.
I added adjustment points for an area in the sky, in the light sweater,
and fi nally in the clouds. At each stage I adjusted only those points corresponding to the target areas to bring those areas into a good match on
both sides of the oval. In this manner I worked my way up the tone scale
from black to white to produce a complicated custom curve set (Figure
10-3-f) that would bring all the tones and colors together. The faded oval
area was almost completely invisible in the resulting photograph in
Figure 10-3-g. Now I had a uniformly degraded photograph to work
with, and I could start correcting the overall tone and color.
Figure 10-3-g was dark, red, and lacked saturation. I improved the
brightness and got rid of most of the red cast with the curves in Figure
10-3-h. The green curve adjustments made the shadows more neutral
without affecting the middle and highlight tones. Dropping the midtone

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-3-f This is the Curves adjustment I made to Figure 10-3-d, masked with the oval mask from Figure 10-3-e. It makes the
tones inside and outside of the masked area match nearly perfectly (Figure 10-3-g).

Fig. 10-3-g After the masked Curves correction from Figure 10-3-f, this photograph is uniform
enough in appearance for me to begin serious color and tone restoration.

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

367

Fig. 10-3-h I made this Curves adjustment to produce Figure 10-3-i. The RGB curve lightens the photograph, while the red curve
adds cyan to eliminate the reddish cast. The green curve makes the shadows more neutral by eliminating a green bias in the darker
tones.

and higher red values and raising the midpoint in the RGB curve substantially improved the picture.
I followed that change with a saturation boost of 36 points to get
Figure 10-3-i, which has fair overall color balance for the mother and
child, but serious problems remained. The background looks far too
brown. The clothing and highlights are dull and gray. The average skin
tone is correct, but it’s blotchy and harsh. From this point on, I worked
on the photograph piecemeal, using masks. I decided to attack the background problem fi rst.
I carefully traced around the mother and child with the Lasso tool
to create the mask shown in Figure 10-3-j. I inverted that mask and
applied it to the photograph to select the background. I used the Curves
and Hue/Saturation tools on the background to reduce the amount of
red, increase the overall contrast, and improve the saturation. I fi netuned color curves to make the clouds neutral, the sky blue, and the
foliage dark green to black (Figure 10-3-k). Then I increased the saturation by 20 points, which got me to Figure 10-3-l.
Streaks, blotches, and other defects such as surface cracks became all
too visible after so much enhancement. I had to do a large amount of
touch-up work with the Clone, Dodge, and Burn tools to correct the
color and tone artifacts. I used the Clone tool to remove the most obvious
of the cracks. I followed that with a 1.5-pixel-radius Gaussian Blur to
the background to subdue noise and cracks in the background.
Having fi nished with the background, I deleted the selection and
made some minor adjustments to the color and contrast to make the
picture a bit more snappy. Next I focused my attention on the mother
and child. The most evident flaw was the harsh and blotchy skin tones.
Figure 10-3-m shows a full-color close-up of the faces along with the

Fig. 10-3-i As a result of
the Curves adjustment
from Figure 10-3-h and
a 36-point increase in
contrast, the mother and
daughter are looking
pretty good, but the
background is defi nitely
off-color. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time for
another mask, so that
I can work on the
two regions of the
photograph separately.

Fig. 10-3-j I drew this
mask by hand, using the
Lasso tool to carefully
follow the outline of the
mother and child. It lets
me perform separate
corrections on the
background and the
people. I applied it
to Figure 10-3-i and
inverted it to select the
background.

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

369

Fig. 10-3-k This is the
Curves adjustment I
used to correct the
background. I applied
this adjustment, using
the mask in Figure
10-3-j, to produce Figure
10-3-l. These curves
lighten the background
slightly and make it
substantially bluer and
more cyan. The green
curve eliminates some
color crossover, making
the shadows less green
and highlights less pink,
as shown in Figure
10-3-l.

Fig. 10-3-l The masked
Curves adjustment from
Figure 10-3-k, plus a
saturation boost of 20
points, improved the
background a lot. The
sky in the backdrop is
now a shade of blue
instead of muddy green,
the clouds are closer to
neutral, and the tree
branch is more green
than brown.

370

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-3-m This closeup of the faces shows the
need for some skin tone
corrections. The skin
color is uneven and
blotchy. The individual
color channels indicate
that the problem is not
with the red channel,
which has smooth and
even tones, but with the
green and blue channels.
The green channel is
a particular problem
because it has too much
midtone contrast; thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
what makes the skin
color vary from flushed
to sallow.

individual red, green, and blue channels. The green channel (lower left)
made it clear that most of the problem was due to excessive contrast
in the magenta. That exaggerated modest variations in the rosiness of
the skin tones such that they ended up with sallow and flushed
complexions.
To fi x this, I traced out a new mask with the Lasso tool, shown in
Figure 10-3-n, to let me work on skin tones and nothing else. I created
a set of curves (Figure 10-3-o) to correct the blotchiness. The green
curve left most tones unchanged, but it reduced the contrast in the green
values between about 120 and 170, which corresponded to the range of
values in the face. To a lesser degree, the blue curve lowered the contrast
of the yellows, eliminating the sallow quality in the shadows and making
the highlights less pink. A very slight raising of the midpoint of the RGB
curve lightened the skin tones overall.
This was all it took to produce a much improved complexion for both
mother and baby (Figure 10-3-p). There were still some yellow and pink
blotches, especially in the shadows. I eliminated them by grabbing a
good average skin color with the eyedropper and using the airbrush tool
set to Color at a few percent strength to spray in that hue without altering the brightness in those areas. I also used the airbrush set to Darken
to mute the highlights on the faces.

Example 3: Mother and Child—A “Legacy” Restoration Job

371

Fig. 10-3-n This mask,
hand-drawn with the
Lasso tool, allows me to
correct the skin tones in
Figure 10-3-l without
altering the rest of the
photograph.

Fig. 10-3-o This Curves adjustment, applied through the mask from Figure 10-3-n, eliminates the blotchy skin tones (see Figure
10-3-p). The RGB curve lightens the skin tones slightly. The major correction is to the green curve, which substantially lowers
contrast in the range of the magenta tones shown in the face. The blue curve adds a bit of yellow to the highlights, so they’re
less pink, and subtracts a little from the shadows, making them less brown.

372

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-3-p The
enlargement on the left
is from Figure 10-3-l
before correction. The
enlargement on the right
shows the effect of the
Curves adjustment from
Figure 10-3-o. It really
improves the skin color.

Fig. 10-3-q Here’s the
fi nal restoration, after
some fi nal local color
adjustments, dodging
and burning-in, a little
bit of airbrushing to get
rid of the worst hot
spots on the skin, and a
thorough cleaning up of
dirt, cracks, and minor
physical damage. Yes,
that flaming red hair is
correctly colored . . . and
natural, to boot!

I corrected the slightly flat and bluish highlights in the clothing by
applying the foreground mask and kicking up the RGB highlight value
in the Curves tool while dropping the blue highlight value a notch. I
switched to the background and slightly darkened it to bring it into better
compositional balance with the subjects.
The color was now almost on target except for two items—the
woman’s hair and her teeth. She’s a brilliant redhead, not the reddish
blond in the photo. I fi xed that with the Burn tool set to a value of 10%

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

373

Fig. 10-4-a This is a 50year-old Ektachrome (E1) slide. It’s lost a great
deal of cyan dye and
has developed an overall
red stain. In addition, it
has a bad case of the
“measles”—there are
yellowish spots all over
the background.

for the midtones. In the channels palette I made the green channel the
only active one (but left all the channels visible, so I could judge the
full-color photograph) and gave the hair a couple of passes with the Burn
tool. The results were perfect!
As for her teeth, which were excessively dark and yellow in the
restored photograph, I fi rst dodged them lightly overall and then dodged
only the blue channel to remove some of the yellowish cast.
The fi nal cleanup wasn’t difficult, but it was very time consuming. I
went over the picture at 100% magnification using the Clone, Dodge,
and Burn tools to eliminate any blotches, scratches, dust specks, and
artifacts along the boundary between the oval area and the surrounding
area that my initial adjustments missed. The fi nished restoration (Figure
10-3-q) is impressive, especially considering that very little of what I did
was an arbitrary application of tone and color to the image—95% of
what you see truly was a restoration from data contained in the original
print.
Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide
The 1950s medium-format Ektachrome slide shown in Figure 10-4-a is
very badly faded. Process E-1 slide fi lms have proven very unstable. This
slide has lost about two-thirds of its cyan dye; the maximum density of
the cyan image is only 1.0 density units—a terribly low number!

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-b
Enlargements of the red
(cyan dye image) and
blue (yellow dye image)
channels from Figure 104-a show the “measles.”
The spots are missing
cyan dye and have excess
amounts of yellow dye,
making them a lighter
orange-yellow in the
photograph.

To make matters worse, the slide is pockmarked with orange-speckle
“measles” damage (Figure 10-4-b), regions where the cyan dye image
has faded even more and serious yellow stain has occurred. And if that
were not enough, the amateur camera and flash that made this photograph produced severe vignetting and chromatic aberration (color
fringing).
Right out of the gate, I ran into another obstacle: making a good scan
was going to be extremely difficult. This is exactly the kind of slide I
warned about back in Chapter 4, Getting the Photo into the Computer,
page 119. There’s so much density loss in one dye layer that it makes it
very difficult for the scanner to collect good tonal information from all
the dye layers. The magenta dye layer is nearly intact, with the result
that scans that produced acceptable cyan information completely wiped
out the magenta midtone and shadow detail (Figure 10-4-c). Without
magenta tonal separation, it would be impossible to accurately restore
color in the midtones and shadows.
One way to acquire the whole density range would be to make several
scans at different exposures and combine them using Picture Window’s
Stack Images Transformation, as I illustrated in Figure 4-31. Chapter 9,
Tips, Tricks, and Enhancements, page 316, tells you how to do this. For
this particular restoration job, though, I solved my problem with the
scanner’s built-in
DIGITAL ROC software. Actually, I ran the full
3
DIGITAL ICE suite to clean up dirt and scratches and suppress fi lm
grain, but ROC was the essential tool. DIGITAL ROC in the scanner has
access to the raw scanner data, so it can make use of all that raw shadow
information that a straight scan has trouble retaining (Figure 10-4-d).
ROC substantially corrected the color but the high magenta densities
cost me some shadow detail and made the image a little noisy, so I made

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

375

Fig. 10-4-c The magenta
dye image makes it
tough to scan this slide;
it has so much density
in the shadow areasâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;
especially compared to
the cyan and yellow dye
imagesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that a normal
scan cannot capture all
three layers successfully.
A scan that records the
other two dye layers
correctly completely
blocks up the shadows in
the magenta layer, as
pictured here.

Fig. 10-4-d DIGITAL
ROC to the rescue! ROC
normalizes the densities
in all three dye images as
it does its color analysis
and correction. It pulls
in much better shadow
detail in all the channels
that any straight scan
would.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-e Scanning
with 16× sampling does
an even better job in the
shadows. Compare the
detail in the cabinet in
the background in this
photo with the one in
Figure 10-4-d. More
detail’s visible here, and
it has less noise. The
color produced by ROC in
the single-sampled scan,
though, is better than in
the 16× scan. Combining
the two scans in layers
gets me the best of both
(see Figure 10-4-f).

a new scan with 16× multiple sampling turned on. In this mode the
scanner makes 16 measurements of each pixel instead of one, which
substantially reduces noise and extracts more shadow detail, but also
greatly increases scan time.
The shadow tones were substantially improved (Figure 10-4-e), but
strangely ROC did not do as good a job of color restoration as it did with
a single-sampled scan. The easiest way to fix this was to combine the
best of both. I made a layered fi le with the 16×-sampled scan as the
background layer and the single-sampled scan as Layer 1 and set
the blend mode for Layer 1 to Color. That produced an image combining
the luminance values from the 16× scan with the color values from the
single-sampled scan (Figure 10-4-f). I flattened that fi le to reduce bulk
and saved it.
Before correcting the chromatic aberration, I cleaned up the dust and
scratches. If I corrected the chromatic aberration first, the point-light
specks would be converted to colored smears that would be harder to
get rid of, as illustrated in an earlier chapter (Figure 6-51). To clean up
the scan, I used my usual method of applying the Dust & Scratches filter,
assigning this to the History Brush, reverting to the previous state, and
painting over the defects with the brush (Chapter 8, page 268).
I saved the retouched fi le as a TIFF fi le so that I could import it into
Picture Window, whose Chromatic Aberration correction tool is much
better than Photoshop’s (Chapter 6, page 220). The control window is

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

377

Fig. 10-4-f To create this
photograph, I copied the
single-sampled scan into
a background layer in a
new file. I copied the 16Ă&#x2014;
scan into Layer 1 and set
the blend mode to Color.
That merged the color
rendition of Figure
10-4-d with the tonality
of Figure 10-4-e,
producing this result,
which is superior to both.

Fig. 10-4-g Picture Window has a better tool for fi xing chromatic aberration than Photoshop. The resizable Chromatic Aberration
control window lets me make much fi ner adjustments to correct color fringing. The result of this fi x is shown in Figure 10-4-h.

resizable (Figure 10-4-g), so I stretched it out horizontally to give me
much fi ner control. I saved the corrected TIFF fi le (Figure 10-4-h) and
returned to Photoshop.
I decided not to fi x the vignetting with the vignetting correction
available in Photoshopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Lens Distortion fi lter, because the edges were
not just darker but also more green-cyan. I wanted to correct both the
tone and color, so the right solution was a Curves adjustment layer
(Figure 10-4-i) with a radial gradient mask to restrict the effects to the
periphery. I modified the mask a bit with a black airbrush in the lower

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-h This enlargement of the chandelier from Figure 10-4-f shows how Picture Windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Chromatic Aberration tool gets rid of the color fringing. The upper fi gure is the photograph before
correction; the bottom one is the same photograph after Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve removed the chromatic aberration.

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

379

Fig. 10-4-i A Curves adjustment layer containing the mask in Figure 10-4-j corrects the vignetting thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s visible in Figure 10-4-f.
It also removes the slight greenish tinge from the darker edges of the photograph.

Fig. 10-4-j This is the
mask I used in the Curves
adjustment layer that
contained the curves
from Figure 10-4-i.
The main component of
the mask is a circular
gradient running from
black at the center to
white in the corners. The
dark splotch in the lower
left portion of the mask
corresponds to the
bright white shirt in the
photograph. I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want
that shirt to get any
lighter, so I blocked the
effect of the Curves
adjustment there.

left portion so that the white shirt wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be further lightened (Figure
10-4-j).
Next I darkened the foreground to reduce the uneven flash illumination, using another Curves adjustment layer (Figure 10-4-k) with the
mask in Figure 10-4-l. A bit of highlight burning-in on the white shirt
in the foreground and some cloning work along the edges to clean them
up took me to Figure 10-4-m.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-k This Curves
adjustment burns in
the foreground of the
photograph, which was
brightly illuminated by
the on-camera flash that
made the photograph.
I used this curve in an
adjustment layer with the
mask from Figure 10-4-l.

Fig. 10-4-l The mask for
the foreground burn-in
layer that evens out
the illumination in
the photograph by
eliminating the hot spot
on the tablecloth and the
planter.

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

381

Fig. 10-4-m This is how
the photograph looks
after correcting the
vignetting and the bright
foreground with two
Curves adjustment layers.
Compare it to Figure
10-4-f; the lighting looks
much better in this
photograph.

It was time to deal with the orange-speckle problem. I wanted to
create a mask that would select for them to avoid having to deal with
each and every speckle individually. Since each speckle was minus cyan
and plus yellow, I started by subtracting the blue channel from the red
channel. I made a copy of the full-color image and used the Channel
Mixer with the settings shown in Figure 10-4-n to subtract the channels
and double the contrast.
This did a pretty good job of grabbing the speckles, although it
retained some image detail. I made a Levels adjustment on that image
to bring the speckles up to white and pushed everything else as close to
black as I could without clipping off too many of the speckles (Figure
10-4-o). I copied that grayscale image into a new channel in the original
fi le for use as a mask.
I loaded this mask as a selection and created a new Curves adjustment
layer. I adjusted the red and blue curves to make as many of the speckles
as possible blend into the background (Figure 10-4-p). This was highly
successful, but some speckles were missed, and other parts of the image
that were retained by the mask were slightly altered.
I fi xed that by retouching the layerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mask. Using a white airbrush
set to about 20% opacity I spotted out the few unrepaired speckles by
adding gray and white dots to the mask. Switching the brush to black,
I fi lled in the parts of the mask that erroneously selected real image
detail, switching back and forth between viewing the mask and viewing

382

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-n I used Channel Mixer to create a mask that selected for the “measles.” Since the measles are light in the red channel
and dark in the blue, relative to the rest of the photograph (see Figure 10-4-b), I set the blue channel to −200% and adjusted the
red channel until I got maximum contrast between the measles and the rest of the photograph (180%). That created the lowcontrast mask in the background of this screenshot.

the photograph to catch areas I had missed. It took me over an hour to
get to the fi nished mask in Figure 10-4-q, which is much less time than
it would have taken to attack all the speckles by hand. Figure 10-4-r
shows an enlarged portion of the photograph before and after speckle
elimination.
Now we’re on the home stretch of the damage repair. There are some
yellow stains in the man’s shirt in the foreground and some cyan stains
on the other man’s left shoulder. I eliminated those easily by using the
Clone tool set to Color mode to clone the color from the neutral part of
the shirt over the stains. They disappeared entirely.

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

383

Fig. 10-4-o I used a
Levels adjustment to
greatly increase the
contrast of the mask,
making the majority of
measles pure white and
most of the rest of the
photograph solid black.

Fig. 10-4-p To attack the measles, I used these curves in a Curves adjustment layer that was masked
with Figure 10-4-o. The red curve increases the amount of cyan in the measles, while the blue curve
reduces the amount of yellow. I adjusted the curves by eye to eliminate as many speckles as possible.
It did not do a perfect job; a few measles slipped past the adjustments, and some other parts of the
image were affected.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-q I handretouched the mask with
white and black brushes
to completely block out
the photographic image
and to pick up a few
speckles that the Channel
Mixer mask missed. This
mask got rid of the
measles most effectively
(see Figure 10-4-r).

Fig. 10-4-r Before
and after measles
eradication! The fi gure
on the left is enlarged
from Figure 10-4-m. The
fi gure on the right shows
how well the Curves
adjustment layer erased
the measles entirely.
Now that the
photographâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s been
cleaned up, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to
make the fi nal tone and
color adjustments.

Example 4: A Faded E-1 Slide

385

Fig. 10-4-s The RGB
curve, a modest S-shaped
curve, gives the midtones
a little more brilliance
and darkens the
photograph slightly. The
blue curve leaves the
midtones alone but
removes a small amount
of blue color cast in the
highlights and shadows
(see Figure 10-4-t).

The burgundy wall in the background needed a little bit of cleanup
to eliminate scan noise and slight tonal irregularities that were left
behind by the orange-speckle elimination. Because the wall was distinctively colored, I could easily select for it using the Magic Wand with only
a little bit of Lasso work to eliminate spurious selections in the curtain
and china cabinet. I shrank that selection by 15 pixels and feathered it
by 10. That was to avoid a sharp demarcation line between the selected
area and the rest of the picture. Applying the Dust & Scratches fi lter
with a radius of 50 pixels and a threshold of 5 cleaned up the wall very
nicely.
Having completely cleaned up the damage, it was time for me to
refi ne the tone and color. The photograph was dull and desaturated,
problems easily fi xed with a Curves adjustment layer that increased the
midrange contrast (Figure 10-4-s). I also used this layer to refi ne the
color in the highlights and shadows.
The skin tones still lacked a certain richness, so I increased saturation
by 14 points and assigned that change to the History Brush. I reverted
to the previous state and painted in the increased saturation on the folks’
skin to get Figure 10-4-t.
Next I zoomed in on the faces and did a little cosmetic work. Oncamera flash tends to blow out the highlights in a face and often produces sallow, even cyanotic, skin tones, depending on just how the light
reflects off the skin. The two women look distinctly jaundiced, and the
five-o’clock shadow on the man in the foreground had an unhealthy
greenish cast. Hair highlights were also unrealistically blue.
I fi xed all of this with the Burn tool set to an exposure of 5% for the
midtones. First I switched to the green channel and brushed a bit of
“blush” into the skin tones that were especially sallow. That also took
care of the green five-o’clock shadow. Then I switched to the blue

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-4-t This is how
Figure 10-4-m looks
after I’ve cleaned up the
yellow stains and made
the Curves adjustment
from Figure 10-4-s. The
colors look better, and
the faces no longer look
flat and pasty.

channel and ran the Burn tool over skin tones that were too pink and
over the hair.
The trick is to not overdo this. I didn’t want to wipe out the variations in tone and color, which would have made the faces look unnaturally flat. The objective was to narrow the range of colors and center all
of them around a healthy look.
As a fi nishing touch on the faces, I used the Brush tool set at 5%
strength to carefully brush some tone into the strong highlights on the
faces. I used the eyedropper to sample the tones near the areas I wanted
to soften. Just as with burning-in, it’s important not to overdo this. A
little bit goes a long way. Figure 10-4-u shows how much these little
adjustments improved the people’s appearance.
My very last action was to burn in the highlights and the midtones
in the foreground by about 10%. This kept those broad light areas from
dominating the picture so much, and it focused attention better on the
people. The result is in Figure 10-4-v.
Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate
I made the photograph shown in Figure 10-5-a, my fi rst astrophotograph, back in high school in 1966. Back then all serious astrophotography was done on special glass plates that were only about half the
thickness of the old pictorial photography glass plates. Twenty years ago

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

387

Fig. 10-4-u The
enlargement from Figure
10-4-t, on the left, shows
some unattractive hot
spots on the faces, and
the skin colors are
slightly blotchy. The
fi gure on the right shows
the improved faces after
a little retouching work
with the Burn and Brush
tools, as described in the
main text.

Fig. 10-4-v Here’s the
fi nished restoration. The
color looks good and
natural, there’s plenty of
highlight and shadow
detail, and I’ve
attractively softened the
harsh lighting of the
original photograph.
Plus, all the measles are
gone!

my photograph got broken into eight fragments during a move. Now it’s
time to fi x it.
Fortunately, all the breaks in the plate were very clean, so I was able
to reassemble the pieces on the platen of the scanner in positions very
close to where they should be in the repaired photograph. Unlike the
antique glass plate in Example 1, this was an easy scan with no unusually high densities, so I didn’t bother masking off the edges of the
plate.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-a I made this
photograph of the North
America Nebula 40 years
ago on a glass plate. It
got broken in a move
about 20 years ago. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m
glad I saved the pieces,
because now I can repair
it digitally.

My plate recorded a lot of sky glow in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;blackâ&#x20AC;? parts of the sky,
so I adjusted the levels in the scanner software and the gamma to lighten
up the scan (Figure 10-5-b). I also made some modest adjustments to
the curves to open up the tones a bit more. None of this was strictly
necessary, and a straight 16-bit scan would have been entirely adequate,
but it never hurts to improve things early on.
I scanned the plate in 16-bit RGB mode at a resolution of 1200 ppi.
In Photoshop, I fl ipped it left to right and used the Channel Mixer
(Figure 10-5-c) to blend all three channels into a monochrome image
and converted it to the grayscale fi le you see in Figure 10-5-d.
My next task was to reassemble all the fragments into as perfect a fit
as possible before repairing the cracks. Because of my careful scan, there
were almost no gaps between the fragments. The best tool for outlining
each fragment as a selection was the Magnetic Lasso tool. Beginning at
the lower right corner of the plate, I pinned the Lasso to the start of the
edge of the long shard and dragged it along the crack, setting curve
points as I went. When I fi nished selecting this long, thin knife-shaped
fragment, shown against the pink mask overlay in Figure 10-5-e, I saved
that selection as a mask in a new channel (Mask 1 in Figure 10-5-f).
Next, I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to pick out the horizontal crack
that bisected the plate, selecting for the two fragments in the top portion

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

389

Fig. 10-5-b These are the scanner settings I used to produce Figure 10-5-d. They remove the overall fog and stain from the plate
and increase the contrast in the dense parts of the negative, which correspond to the real astronomical details.

Fig. 10-5-c These
Channel Mixer settings
combine equal amounts
of the RGB components
of the scan to produce a
grayscale image (Figure
10-5-d). This gives
me maximum tonal
information with
minimum noise for this
photograph.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-d The adjusted
scan of Figure 10-5-a,
converted to grayscale. I
positioned the shards of
glass in approximate
alignment on the scanner
platen before making the
scan. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m going to have
to digitally move them
around like pieces of
a puzzle to get the
alignment perfect.

Fig. 10-5-e I use masks
to isolate each fragment
of the plate, so that I can
nudge it into the exactly
the right position. I made
the mask, shown here
as a pink overlay on the
photograph, using the
Magnetic Lasso tool to
trace the boundary of
this shard.

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

Fig. 10-5-f Mask 1 is the mask I created in Figure 10-5-e. I made Mask 2 by tracing the long horizontal crack with the Magnetic Lasso tool. Inverting Mask 2 and subtracting Mask 1 from it, using
the Load Selection dialog, produced Mask 3, shown superimposed on the original photograph at the
lower left. It selects two areas of the plate, each of which contains two fragments. I isolated those
areas with the Lasso tool and saved them as Masks 4 and 5. I subdivided those masks using the
Magnetic Lasso tool to give me four more masks (not pictured) for those individual fragments of the
plate.

of the plate. I saved that mask in another channel (Mask 2, Figure
10-5-f).
I can combine masks in a variety of ways, so I can isolate some pieces
of the plate without having to retrace their edges by adding and subtracting masks. For example, I loaded the first mask and inverted it; that
selected everything but the thin knife-shaped shard. Using the Load
Selection dialog, I inverted the second mask and added it to the selection
Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d already made.
That composite selection I made subtracted out the knife-shaped
shard and everything in the top of the plate (Mask 3, Figure 10-5-f). It
neatly selected two areas, each containing two fragments, as you can
see in Figure 10-5-f, lower left, where Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve overlaid this selection on the
original scan. Using the regular Lasso tool, I selected each of those areas
in turn and saved them as separate masks (Figure 10-5-f, Masks 4 and
5). Now the plate was subdivided into sections containing one or two
fragments. I used the Magnetic Lasso tool to select each individual fragment out of those masks. I used the large unbroken top half of the plate

391

392

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-g To fi nd the
correct alignment of the
pieces of the plate, I
looked for star images
that straddled a crack
and used them to match
the two fragments. The
arrows here point to the
halves of such a star
image in the unaligned
(left) and aligned (right)
images.

as a fi xed base, loading the masks that selected the fragments that bordered that half and nudging them into alignment with it. I looked along
the cracks for the occasional star image that straddled a crack (Figure
10-5-g). Those images worked like registration marks to let me guide the
pieces into pixel-perfect alignment with each other. (An aside: If I were
trying to preserve this as a scientific record, rather than just a nice
picture, I would skip the whole next step of eliminating the cracks
because that would erase real stars.)
Having “repaired” the plate, I erased the cracks themselves. The
Median fi lter was ideal for this purpose because there was little or no
detail along cracks that needed to be preserved, and the background was
very uniform in average density. I set the fi lter with a wide radius
(Figure 10-5-h) to completely obliterate the cracks.
I assigned the Median fi lter History state to the History Brush and
reverted to the history state just before I applied the fi lter. That undid
the global effect of the fi lter, so that I could use the History Brush to
paint over the cracks
I attacked the cracks in two passes. The cracks themselves scanned
as dark, but associated with them were clear parts where the emulsion
of the plate had broken away. Those areas were all very small and whiter
than the image and had no useful information, so I quickly painted them
in with a large-radius History Brush set to Darken.
I zoomed in to 100% on the screen image and set the History Brush
back to Normal with a radius of 5 pixels and 50% hardness. At that
magnification, the cracks were long, shallow arcs for the most part. That
permitted me to use shift-clicking to quickly select lengths of the crack
and cover them over. I clicked the brush on the crack, moved the brush
down the crack a short distance that corresponded to a “straight”
segment, and shift-clicked the brush. The brush painted a straight line

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

393

Fig. 10-5-h The Median
filter, set to a wide
radius, is a good way to
erase the cracks. Here
I’ve superimposed the
Median filter preview on
the corresponding area
of the image. Observe
how the dark horizontal
crack’s turned into an
almost-invisible faint
shadow. Painting in this
filter with the History
Brush eliminates cracks
effi ciently.

of Median fi ltering that nicely obliterated the short segment of the crack.
I shift-clicked my way along the crack in short jumps, wiping whole
sections with a single mouse-click. This was much faster and more accurate than manually painting along the length of the crack.
While I was at it, I used the Median fi lter History Brush to wipe out
the scratches and dirt specks as well. Once the photograph was clean
and crack-free, I cropped it and inverted the tones so that I could start
working on it as a positive (Figure 10-5-i).
I used the eyedropper to spot-check the values in the darkest parts
of the sky over the field of view. Near the center of the plate the blackest
areas had a value of 88; this fell off radially to a value of 78 at the perimeter. I created a Curves adjustment layer to make the blacks darker and
to even out the exposure.
First I created the adjustment layer with the curve settings shown in
Figure 10-5-j. That layer dropped the values for the blacks by about 60
points. I wanted to darken the blacks at the perimeter about 10 points
less than at the center to even out the exposure. That’s five-sixths as
much of a change at the edges as at the center.
To achieve this I added a radial gradient mask to the layer. I set the
foreground color to 100% white, the background color to 85% (fivesixths) white, set the starting point of the gradient at the center of the
circular image, and drew a gradient line out to just beyond the edge of
the field of view. That produced the mask shown in Figure 10-5-k, which
reduced the effect of the layer by just the right amount to give me a
uniform exposure over the entire plate (Figure 10-5-l).

394

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-i Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the
plate, repaired, cleaned
up, and inverted to make
a positive image. Now
itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time to improve the
tonality and clean up
residual artifacts left
from the repair job.

Fig. 10-5-j This Curves
adjustment takes the sky
background down to a
dark charcoal gray in
Figure 10-5-l. I used it
in conjunction with the
mask in Figure 10-5-k to
even out the light falloff
at the edges of the
image.

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

395

Fig. 10-5-k This faint
circular gradient mask,
used in a Curves
adjustment layer with the
curve from Figure 10-5-j,
produces the uniform and
good-looking photograph
in Figure 10-5-l.

Fig. 10-5-l Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the
photograph corrected
with a Curves adjustment
layer using the curve
from Figure 10-5-j and
the mask from Figure
10-5-k.

396

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-m This Curves
adjustment enhances
contrast in the shadows,
bringing out faint
nebulae and detail in
Figure 10-5-q.

I added a second Curves adjustment layer (Figure 10-5-m) that made
the blacks a little richer and greatly boosted the contrast in the shadows
to bring out the faint nebulosity without sacrificing detail in the star
images. From an overall pictorial point of view this looks great, but the
heavy contrast boost made it clear that more work was needed to blend
the erased cracks into the image. Figure 10-5-n shows a particularly bad
section that I selected with the Lasso tool for correction.
Image Doctor is very good at dealing with this type of problem. Its
Smart Fill function does a better job of synthesizing complicated randomlooking textures than the Spot Healing Brush in Photoshop or manual
cloning and blending. Image Doctor only works on 8-bit images, though,
which is the reason I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t apply it earlier. I wanted to do as much tonal
correction as I could to the photograph before reducing the bit depth
from 16 to 8 bits.
After converting the photograph to 8 bits, I applied Image Doctorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Smart Fill to the area I selected (Figure 10-5-o). That produced almost
the effect I wanted (Figure 10-5-p), but some areas that should have
been fi lled with faint nebulae were fi lled with darker sky areas.
I corrected that using the History Brush. I assigned the Smart Fill
operation to the brush, and reverted to the previous history state. I set
the brush to 100% strength and Lighten and painted over the selected
area. That laid down the random star images that Smart Fill had created
for me. Then I switched the brush to Normal and 40% strength and

Example 5: Reassembling an Astronomical Glass Plate

397

Fig. 10-5-n This
screenshot shows an
enlargement of the plate
where four shards come
together and some of the
emulsion was flaked off
(down and to the right of
center in Figure 10-5-d).
Here, the Median filter
created a blur that has a
distinctly different look
and texture from the
surrounding star fi eld. I
selected that region with
the Lasso tool for repair
by Image Doctor.

Fig. 10-5-o Image
Doctor analyzes the
star fi eld inside the
rectangular region that
bounds the selection
in Figure 10-5-n. It
synthesizes texture
and detail from that
information to fill in the
selection area (Figure
10-5-p).

started painting in the crack, applying more strokes of the brush to the
darker areas and fewer to those where I wanted to retain more of the
nebulaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s glow. That did an almost perfect job (Figure 10-5-q). In this
manner I was able to work over all the obvious cracks and blend them
almost invisibly into the background. The fi nished photograph is shown
in Figure 10-5-r.

398

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-5-p Here’s the
repair job that Image
Doctor did. I left the
dotted selection line on
to make it easier to see
the repaired region.
Note that the stars and
nebulae that fill the
repaired area are not
real. They’re inventions
of Image Doctor. This
kind of repair would not
be acceptable if the
restoration were meant
to have historical or
scientifi c value.

Fig. 10-5-q Image
Doctor didn’t produce
precisely the effect I
wanted in Figure 10-5-p,
so I assigned that result
to the History Brush and
reverted to the previous
state. I used the Brush
in Lighten and Darken
modes to paint in Image
Doctor’s corrections with
just the strength needed
to make it blend into the
surrounding image.

Example 6: A Rare and Historic Old Polaroid

399

Fig. 10-5-r The fi nished
photograph, after the
Curves adjustment from
Figure 10-5-m. I not only
completely repaired the
cracks, but with the
assistance of Photoshop’s
tonal-control tools, I
made a photograph that
looks better than the
original print I had made
from the unbroken plate
in the darkroom.

Example 6: A Rare and Historic Old Polaroid
I made (I’ve never liked the phrase “taking” pictures—I don’t take’em,
I make’em.) this Polaroid photograph (Figure 10-6-a) as a teenager
more than 40 years ago. What makes it historically interesting is that
it’s a portrait of the world-famous physicist, Dr. Richard P. Feynman.
What makes it rare is that it shows him with a mustache, a short-lived
“look” for the brilliant scientist. For those reasons, I wanted to make
minimal changes to this photograph when I restored it. I did not want
to obscure or alter some detail that might be of importance to a future
viewer.
Where the lacquer didn’t sufficiently protect the silver from oxidation, the Polaroid had turned yellowish, but that hadn’t gotten so bad
yet that it substantially altered densities. Since the blue channel didn’t
provide any detail that wasn’t in the red and green channels and it was
the one that showed the color shift most strongly, I used the Channel
Mixer to combine equal parts of the red and green channels to make a
new monochrome image, just as I did in Example 1 (Figure 10-1-d).
Next I cleaned up the white spots, which were places where the
Polaroid image hadn’t transferred to the receiving sheet when it was
made. I did that using the Dust & Scratches fi lter, set to a radius of 7
and a threshold of 12, and assigned to the History Brush. The reason I

400

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-6-a This 40year-old Polaroid
photograph of Dr.
Richard P. Feynman
sporting a mustache was
made by the author as a
teenager. It has faded
and needs restoration,
but because it has
historical value I want to
alter the image as little
as possible.

Fig. 10-6-b This
grayscale scan is a mix of
50% red and 50% green
channels. It has good
tones, but it lacks
contrast, as shown by
the histogram in Figure
10-6-c.

used that high threshold was to make sure that the Dust & Scratches
fi lter wouldn’t alter any of the grain in the photograph.
I used the History Brush in Darken mode to paint out the white
specks. The background was out of focus, and the fi lter hadn’t changed
any of the grain in the photograph, which allowed me to use a verylarge-radius brush to eliminate all white specks in the background with
only a few strokes. There was no fi ne image detail there that I had to be
worried about obliterating.
Now I had a pretty clean photograph (Figure 10-6-b), but the contrast
was flat, and it didn’t have good blacks. The histogram in Figure 10-6-c,

Example 6: A Rare and Historic Old Polaroid

401

Fig. 10-6-c The top
histogram, for Figure
10-6-b, shows that the
whites are pretty good,
but the blacks are
substantially lacking in
density. That leads to the
correction curve in Figure
10-6-d. Applying this
curve produces Figure
10-6-e, whose histogram
is shown in the lower
fi gure here.

top, showed that I wasn’t using the lower 25% of the tonal range effectively, so I applied the curves in Figure 10-6-d. The adjusted photograph
(Figure 10-6-e) looked a lot better, with the histogram in Figure 10-6-c,
bottom. That’s a much better distribution of tones.
Overall, though, I felt the photograph was a bit harsh; and had that
“amateur look” characterized by poor tonal separation in the highlights
and shadows. The shirt in particular looked blown out. It was time to
use Photoshop’s Shadow/Highlight adjustments (Figure 10-6-f; see

402

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-6-d In this
Curves adjustment, I’ve
pulled the black point
way in to improve the
tonal range in the
photograph. I bowed the
curve upward to maintain
midtones at the same
level because they looked
good in Figure 10-6-b.
The result is Figure
10-6-e.

Fig. 10-6-e The tonality
is considerably improved,
but I’d like the detail
in the highlights and
shadows to be a bit
better. I can enhance
this with the Shadow/
Highlight adjustment
(Figure 10-6-f).

Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page 145, for a full explanation of how to use
this tool). I set the Shadow Amount at 24% and the Tonal Width to
16%, to restrict the change to the deepest shadows. I added just a bit of
highlight correction—only 5% over a Tonal Width of 29%—but even
that small amount made a big difference in the results, as you can see
in Figure 10-6-g. Shadows are opened up, there’s much more detail

Example 6: A Rare and Historic Old Polaroid

403

Fig. 10-6-f This Shadow/
Highlight adjustment
produces Figure 10-6-g.
I applied a substantial
amount of shadow
adjustment, but I kept
the tonal width small, so
only the darker shadows
were affected. I added in
a little bit of highlight
adjustment to improve
detail in the shirt and
dropped the midtone
contrast substantially to
give the photograph a
more pleasing, linear
tonal scale overall.

Fig. 10-6-g The
improvements produced
by the Shadow/Highlight
adjustment in Figure 106-f are subtle, but they
make the photograph
look noticeably better
than Figure 10-6-e.
Highlight and shadow
detail are defi nitely
improved.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-6-h The toneand contrast-enhanced
photograph is fairly
grainy, as can be seen
in the left fi gure. I used
DIGITAL GEM to suppress
the grain without
sacrifi cing fi ne detail
(right).

visible in the shirt, and the overall tonality looks a lot smoother and
more professional.
I could have stopped at this point, but I wanted to see if I could suppress the grain in the photograph a bit. This was a small (less than 3
inches long) photograph made on Polaroid 3000 speed fi lm. Consequently the photograph was grainy to begin with, and correcting and
enhancing the contrast only accentuated that (Figure 10-6-h, left).
Because of the historical value of the photograph, I didn’t want to do
any grain reduction that would reduce image detail in the slightest. After
experimenting with the blurring and noise reduction fi lters in Photoshop and Picture Window, I concluded that the best way to suppress the
grain without destroying any detail was with a third-party plug-in. Two
that did a good job on this photo were PixelGenius’s PhotoKit Sharpener
edge-protected smoothing brush and Kodak’s DIGITAL GEM (Figure
10-6-i), discussed in Chapter 3, Software for Restoration.
I went with GEM. The settings were the default ones except for blending, which I reduced to 55%. (I could have accomplished the same thing
by applying the fi lter at full strength and fading it back to 55% afterward.) This softened the grain without compromising image detail
(Figure 10-6-h, right).
As the fi nishing touch, I burned in the sky and the background along
the right edge with a 5% highlight burn. That darkened those areas just
enough to direct the focus of attention onto Dr. Feynman (Figure 10-6j). A subtle change, but one that substantially improved the composition
for me without compromising its accuracy.

Fig. 10-6-j This fully
restored photograph
looks much better than
the original Polaroid print
in Figure 10-6-a, and
I achieved these
improvements without
changing any important
details in the
photograph. The
restoration looks much
better than the original,
but it is still historically
accurate.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-7-a Photocopies
of photographs can be
restored! This memorial
photograph from a color
snapshot was screened
and poorly photocopied
onto nonarchival paper.
After less than a decade,
lots of dark spots have
appeared.

Example 7: Fixing a Photocopied Halftone
The photograph in Figure 10-7-a is a clipping from a memorial service
pamphlet that was printed in the late 1990s. It was not very good to
begin with; the original photograph, presumably a color snapshot, was
screened and poorly photocopied for the leaflet. During its short life it’s
gotten much worse, because the nonarchival paper started developing
brown spots and freckles, which are easily seen in the enlargement on
the right.
The fi rst restoring step was to get rid of the halftone screen. I turned
to the Focus Magic stand-alone program, which includes a Despeckle
fi lter for eliminating halftone dots (see Chapter 9, page 321). Figure 107-b, top, shows the Focus Magic control panel. I selected a dot pitch of
17 pixels, which closely matched the spacing between halftone dots.
Running the program produced the result shown in Figure 10-7-b,
bottom.
The original halftone screen has been replaced by a low-contrast
secondary pattern with a spacing of 8 pixels. I ran the program again
with the settings shown in Figure 10-7-c and got a nearly dot-free result.
The descreened photograph, converted to grayscale, is shown in Figure
10-7-d; compare it to Figure 10-7-a.
Next I went after the horizontal photocopy “scan lines” that are
visible throughout the photograph. I created a Curves adjustment layer
to use as a burn-in layer (see Chapter 5, page 160) with the curve shown

Example 7: Fixing a Photocopied Halftone

407

Fig. 10-7-b Focus
Magic’s stand-alone
application is a good tool
for eliminating halftone
screens. The top fi gure
shows the Focus Magic
control panel previewing
the upper corner of
the photocopy before
descreening. The bottom
fi gure shows the
photocopy after it’s been
“despeckled” with a 17pixel radius. There’s still
some residual screen
pattern.

in Figure 10-7-e. I fi lled in the mask channel for that layer with black
and used a white brush to paint over the scan lines, darkening them
until they blended into the surroundings. The fi nished burn-in mask is
on the right in Figure 10-7-e. Figure 10-7-f shows an enlarged section
of the photograph before and after burning-in, so you can see in detail
how the mask worked to subdue the lines.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-7-c A second
pass with Focus Magic,
using an 8-pixel radius,
completely removes the
screen pattern. Figure
10-7-d shows the results.

Fig. 10-7-d This is what
Figure 10-7-a looks like
after being descreened
with Focus Magic and
converted to grayscale.
The photograph is almost
as sharp as the original
photocopy, but that
annoying screen pattern
is entirely gone. Copier
â&#x20AC;&#x153;scan linesâ&#x20AC;? mar the
photograph, though.

Example 7: Fixing a Photocopied Halftone

409

Fig. 10-7-e A burn-in
Curves adjustment layer
can get rid of scan lines
like those in Figure 10-7d. The burn-in curve that
I used is shown on the
left. After I brushed out
all the scan lines, the
fi nished mask for that
adjustment layer looked
like the right fi gure.

Fig. 10-7-f This
enlargement shows
how well the burn-in
adjustment layer in
Figure 10-7-b cleaned up
the photograph in Figure
10-7-d. On the left is
a section of that
photograph before
burning-in. In the center
is the corresponding
section of burn-in mask
from the adjustment
layer. On the right is the
cleaned-up photograph.

I added another Curves adjustment layer to reduce the contrast of the
spots in the photograph. The Color Range selection tool created a mask
that selected only the light areas of the photograph (Figure 10-7-g,
right). That layerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curve lightens and reduces the contrast in the middlelight tones to almost nothing. If there were any middle-light detail in
the photograph, it would be completely suppressed by this curve. Since
there isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, it has almost no effect on the photograph proper, but it substantially subdued the spots.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-7-g This Curves
adjustment layer
suppresses the dark
“freckles” marring the
paper by dropping the
contrast in the middle
highlights to nearly zero.
The mask on the right,
created with the Color
Range selection tool,
limits the effect of this
curve to the highlight
areas of the photograph.

Fig. 10-7-h The
photocopy after I’ve
eliminated the scan lines
and suppressed the
freckles. The Curves 1
layer in the layer stack
holds the burning-in that
gets rid of the scan lines
(see Figure 10-7-d). The
highlights layer reduces
the appearance of the
freckles (see Figure
10-7-g).

Figure 10-7-h shows the result, with the layer stack on the right.
Freckles are only visible in the light, featureless parts of the photograph,
so I attacked them aggressively. I ran the Dust & Scratches fi lter with a
zero-threshold and a 30-pixel radius. I assigned that fi lter to the History
Brush, reverted to the previous history state, and painted over the blank,
light parts of the photograph with the brush to erase the freckles.

Example 7: Fixing a Photocopied Halftone

411

Fig. 10-7-i In Figure 107-h, I used the Dust &
Scratches filter with
the History Brush to
eliminate the freckles
from the highlights. Then
I used a 35-pixel
Gaussian Blur filter with
the History Brush to
smooth out the
background and make it
less distracting. Just a bit
more cleanup and a little
tone correction, and this
restoration will be
complete.

I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t like the distracting background, so I ran the Gaussian Blur
fi lter with a 35-pixel radius, assigned it to the History Brush, and painted
over the background. Those two operations got me to Figure 10-7-i,
which looks pretty nice!
The last major thing I did to fi nish up the photograph was to enhance
the detail and contrast to the highlights. I created another Curves adjustment layer with the curve in Figure 10-7-j. That curve leaves everything
but the lightest tones untouched (see Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, page
148). It drastically increases the contrast in the tones with values above
200, darkening the lower values, lightening the higher values, and
taking the lightest values up to almost pure white.
As a fi nishing touch, I lightly burned in the line of the jaw and curve
of the cheek to defi ne the face better. The fi nal result is shown in Figure
10-7-k. I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t claim that this is a gorgeous photograph, but it is astonishingly better than what I started with. It should come as no surprise
that it made the owner of the clipping incredibly happy.

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CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-7-j This Curves
adjustment boosts the
contrast in the highlights,
helping to emphasize
what little detail is
present there. It also
cleans up the whites,
making them close to
pure white instead of
dingy gray, as shown in
Figure 10-7-k.

Fig. 10-7-k The fi nished
restoration. After
applying the curve from
Figure 10-7-j, I did a little
bit of burning-in along
the jaw line and the
cheek to bring out some
modeling in the face.
Compare this to the
original in Figure 10-7-a;
itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an immense
improvement!

Example 8: Restoring an Almost-Blank Photo
Back in Chapter 5, Restoring Tone, on page 167, I introduced you to
Figure 10-8-a, the most badly faded photograph I’ve restored to date. I
showed you how a careful scan combined with DIGITAL ROC could
restore some semblance of color and detail to the photograph (Figure
10-8-b).
This photograph is still extremely pale, so I added the Curves adjustment layer shown in Figure 10-8-c. The curve greatly darkens the photograph and increases the contrast in the highlights and midtones by a
factor of three. I incorporated a radial gradient mask in the layer to
eliminate light falloff in the original photograph. That falloff wasn’t
apparent until I applied the Curves correction, but as Figure 10-8-d, left,
shows, it was there just waiting to come out. The gradient mask neatly
eliminated most of it; I left some falloff to focus attention on the baby.
Now that I could more clearly see the photograph, not to mention
the dirt and scratches, I cleaned it up with my usual technique. I applied
the Dust & Scratches fi lter with a radius of 11 pixels and a threshold of
8, assigned that fi lter to the History Brush, and reverted to the previous
History state. I set the Brush to Lighten mode and cleaned up the photograph. The Clone tool picked off the few blemishes that the History
Brush missed.
Figure 10-8-e, left, shows what the photograph looked like after I’d
cleaned it. It’s apparent that the color is a little uneven; it’s hard to make

414

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-8-b A careful
scan and DIGITAL ROC
make a big difference.
Now there’s color and
detail in the baby and
crib. It’s faint, to be sure,
but it’s something to
work with.

Fig. 10-8-c A Curves
adjustment layer turns
Figure 10-8-b into Figure
10-8-d. This RGB curve
darkens the photograph
and greatly increases
contrast and detail in the
highlights. The radial
gradient mask for the
layer evens out the
exposure, eliminating the
vignetting at the corners
of the photograph.

out, so I added a Hue/Saturation layer set to +50 points. That amplified
the color differences, producing the figure on the right. Now the pattern
of red and green mottling is very clear.
I went after that with a couple of Curves adjustment layers. These
work like the dodging and burning-in adjustment layers I introduced in
Chapter 5, page 160, except that here I’m using them to correct color
instead of tonality.

Example 8: Restoring an Almost-Blank Photo

415

Fig. 10-8-d Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Figure
10-8-b after applying the
Curves adjustment layer
from Figure 10-8-c. The
photo on the left shows
the effect of the RGB
curve before I added
the gradient mask; the
photograph has serious
light falloff at the edges.
The mask evens out the
lighting in the
photograph (right).

Fig. 10-8-e The Dust &
Scratches filter, used in
conjunction with the
History Brush, cleans up
Figure 10-8-d very nicely.
The photograph on
the left has normal
saturation. I added
a Hue/Saturation
adjustment layer with
+50 points saturation to
the photo on the right.
This makes it easier to
see the color blotches
while I correct them with
some adjustment layers.

First, I tackled the reddish tinge around the perimeter of the photograph with the curves in Figure 10-8-f. The green and blue curves shift
the color toward the greenish-cyan, the complement of the color cast
that I want to remove from the photograph. I fi lled in the mask channel
for that layer with black, set the Brush tool to white, and painted out
the unwanted tint. Just as in Chapter 5, I ignored what was actually
happening in the mask channel; I only paid attention to the color in the
photograph. The enhanced saturation produced by the Hue/Saturation
layer worked like a kind of a magnifying glass for color; it was really
easy to see subtle differences in the tint and paint them away. The fi nished mask is shown on the right.
Next, I went after the greenish-yellow splotches in the center of the
photograph with the Curves adjustment layer in Figure 10-8-g. The red

416

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-8-f This Curves adjustment layer eliminates the reddish tinge around the periphery of the photograph. The green and blue
curves shift the hue away from red. I hand-painted the mask on the right the same way I created burn-in layers in Chapter 5. The
mask restricts the curvesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; effects to just those parts of the photograph I need to erase the unwanted red from.

Fig. 10-8-g A second hand-painted Curves adjustment layer eliminates most of the green-yellow spots. The red and blue curves
shift the color toward neutral. Figure 10-8-h shows the results.

and green curves shift the color toward red-magenta to cancel the
color of the splotches. I painted in the mask channel wherever I saw
that greenish-yellow tinge in the photograph until most of it was
eliminated.
After I fi nished getting rid of the color mottle, I discarded the Hue/
Saturation layer. The photograph that this color retouching produced,
shown in Figure 10-8-h, has pretty good overall color balance but the
saturation is very low. Also, thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of grain and noise in the photograph, as is evident in the enlargement. Tackling that noise was my
next challenge.

Example 8: Restoring an Almost-Blank Photo

417

Fig. 10-8-h The two
Curves adjustment layers
in Figures 10-8-f and
10-8-g did a good job of
eliminating the large
areas of uneven color. As
the enlargement on the
right shows, though,
there is still a lot of grain
and color noise,
especially cyan, in this
photograph.

I turned to the Neat Image Pro+ plug-in (Figure 10-8-i). I selected
an area on the back of the crib (gray square) and let Auto Profi le
compute the noise signature for the photograph. Then I ran Auto FineTune to fi ne-tune the noise profi le using the whole image. I applied that
profi le with the default fi lter settings to get Figure 10-8-j. The fi ne noise
is gone, and the photograph looks a lot cleaner. The most distracting
problem is an overall pattern of fi ne, slightly dark and bluish marks that
obscure the delicate, light tones in the photograph. There’s no way to
fi lter those out; it’s time for handwork.
The dark marks are very hard to see clearly, so I added a new Curves
adjustment layer (Figure 10-8-k) to the photograph that greatly increases
its contrast and darkness. Now the defects stand out, permitting me to
retouch them the same way I corrected the large pink and green areas
in the photograph. I created a dodging adjustment layer with the curves
shown in Figure 10-8-l. The RGB curve lightens up the tones. Since the
dark spots are, on average, a little cooler in color than the rest of the
photograph, I also adjusted the red curve to remove a small amount of
cyan. I fi lled in the mask channel with black and went to work with the
white Brush tool set to an opacity of 20%.
It took me about 45 minutes to clean up the photograph, producing
the mask in Figure 10-8-l, right. While doing this work, I noticed that
there were some pink-green color variations that I hadn’t completely
cleaned up in Figure 10-8-h. I went back to the Curves adjustment layers
that dealt with that and did a little more fi ne work on their masks.
Adjustment layers are great that way; you’re not locked into one set of
corrections. You can modify or improve on them at any time.
The result of all that work is shown in Figure 10-8-m, left. The contrast-enhancing layer is still in place. The photograph doesn’t look
perfect; there’s some residual tonal noise and variation visible in the

418

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-8-i Neat Image
is a great tool for fi xing
diffi cult noise problems.
In the fi rst control panel
(top), I selected an area
on the back of the crib
to analyze for noise and
grain, and ran Auto
Profile and Auto FineTune to create a
noise profile for the
photograph. In the
second Control Panel
(bottom), I applied that
noise profile with the
default filter settings
shown on the right.

Fig. 10-8-j Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Figure
10-8-h after Neat Image
has fi nished with it.
The grain pattern is
completely gone, and the
color noise is greatly
reduced.

Fig. 10-8-k I added a
Curves adjustment layer
with the RGB curve
on the left to the
photograph, to
exaggerate highlight
contrast. This makes it
easier to see the tone
and color variations that
I want to retouch out of
the photograph.

Fig. 10-8-l This Curves adjustment layer eliminates the pattern of faint dark spots that obscure the photograph in Figure 10-8-j.
The curves lighten and slightly redden the parts of the photograph that the mask (right) allows to be affected. I hand-painted this
mask to clear out those dark spots, producing Figure 10-8-m.

420

CHAPTER 10 Examples

Fig. 10-8-m On the
left is the retouched
photograph, using the
dodging adjustment layer
from Figure 10-8-l. The
contrast-exaggerating
layer is still in place.
Deleting that layer yields
the fi gure on the right;
compare this to Figure
10-8-j.

Fig. 10-8-n This Curves adjustment layer makes the fi nal tone and color corrections to the photograph. The RGB curve darkens
the photo a little and improves highlight detail, while the green and blue curves correct the color balance by removing a little
yellow-orange cast.

photograph. But that’s only visible because of the enhancing layer. As
soon as I strip that off (right), the photograph looks nicely uniform and
even. Compare this to Figure 10-8-j.
I fi nally have a clean photograph, and I’m on the home stretch. I’m
ready to make the fi nal tone and color adjustments to this photograph.
I created a new Curves adjustment layer with the curves shown in Figure
10-8-n. The RGB curve darkens the photo a bit and increases contrast
in the highlights. The green and blue curves remove a little bit of excess
yellow-orange color and make the photo more neutral overall.
I felt the baby’s face still lacked healthy color, so my fi nal correction
was to add the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer shown in Figure 10-8-o.

Fig. 10-8-o This Hue/
Saturation adjustment
layer improves the color
in the babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s skin,
making it lighter, pinker,
and more saturated. The
hand-painted mask
prevents the rest of the
photograph from being
altered by this layer.

Fig. 10-8-p The fi nished
restoration is an amazing
improvement over Figure
10-8-a. It shows details
I didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t even realize
existed before I started
the restoration. On the
right is the layers stack
that makes up this
extraordinary
reconstruction.

422

CHAPTER 10 Examples

I corrected the reds, shifting the hue by â&#x20AC;&#x201C;5 points, which made the skin
tones a little pinker. I increased the saturation by 31 points and lightened
the color by 22 points. That gave me nice baby skin tones. To restrict the
effect of this layer to just the baby, I hand-painted the mask shown in
the lower part of the figure.
The fi nished photograph is shown in Figure 10-8-p, along with its
layer stack. It truly amazes me how much photographic information
turned out to be buried in Figure 10-8-a. I never guessed Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be able to
do this much with that photograph when I fi rst looked at the nearly
blank square of paper.

C H A PTE R 11

Printing Tips
Choosing the Right Printer
In case you’re looking here to see what printer I recommend, let me
repeat what I said back in Chapter 2: There is no one printer I’d recommend. Every high-end consumer and low-end professional printer produces really good prints these days. Several hundred bucks gets you a
printer that will produce excellent photographs.
What you want to do determines your choice of printer. Are you
going to want to make prints bigger than 81/2 inches by 11 inches? Do
you prefer glossy, semigloss, or matte paper? Will a high percentage of
your printing be B&W? Is print speed important to you? If you’re thinking about starting up a full-service restoration business, the answers to
the above questions will be “Yes,” “All of these,” “Yes,” and “Yes.” If it’s
relatively recent personal family photos you’ll be restoring, the answers
are more likely to be “No,” “Whatever,” “No,” and “No.”
Indeed, I have my personal favorites among printers (see Chapter 2,
page 47) but I want to emphasize that those are my personal favorites.
I’m suppressing my penchant for laying down The Word because I really
think this has to be your decision, not mine.

Choosing Your Print Media for Permanence
Ideally we would like the prints of our restorations to be permanent.
After all, impermanent fi lm and prints forced us into restoration in the
fi rst place. A digital fi le can be printed out again and again, but that
doesn’t make permanent prints any less desirable. Having to go back and
reprint your earlier work is a waste of your time and your money and,
if you’re performing restorations for others, not at all good for your reputation. Better to get it right the fi rst time.
In the world of digital print permanence, there’s good news and
there’s bad news. The good news is that pretty much any current printer
on the market will produce permanent prints (we hope, and I’ll get back
to that). Epson, HP, Canon—they’re all good. Oh yes, people argue about

423

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CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

the different longevity numbers for the different makes and models and
print media, but all the numbers look very, very good. The most reliable
source for longevity data is still Henry Wilhelm’s website (http://www.
wilhelm-research.com). Henry won’t be right 100% of the time; no one
in the conservation business is. But in my experience Henry is right more
often than anybody else, and his objectivity is unimpeachable and
impeccable. He doesn’t favor one manufacturer or medium over another,
and his life’s goal is to provide us with the best, most accurate, and most
objective information on print permanence that he can.
Even less-permanent digital prints today get display ratings of half a
century, far better than that of conventional color photographs from the
1980s. The best test out as having display lives of centuries. In the dark,
in storage boxes or albums, the print life will be even better, according
to the tests.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that none of these new digital
print materials have been around long enough for us to be positive that
the accelerated tests are good predictors of print life under normal conditions. Not that we really have any choice in the matter if we’re doing
digital restoration, but it’s worth being a little cautious in our choices.
I always use the printer manufacturer’s recommended inks and
papers. Mixing and matching inks and papers may get you the “look”
you want, but more often than not it compromises print permanence.
Some combinations of third-party papers and inks perform just as well
or even better than the printer manufacturer’s materials, but most don’t;
many perform much worse.
If you’re going the third-party ink route, look for the folks who sell
complete, quality inking systems, like Piezography. You’re much less
likely to get burned by them. Beware of the folks who just want to sell
you replacement cartridges for your existing inks that are supposed to
be as good as the manufacturers’ inks while costing a fraction of the
price. These third-party inks are usually bad news in the permanence
department. Henry has some data about third-party materials on his
website, but it’s impossible to test every combination of materials out
there. Do not trust the manufacturers of third-party inks and papers to
tell you how they will perform; few of them run good longevity tests,
and they all have a vested interest in selling you their product.
Beware of extreme bargains. By careful shopping around I can get
OEM ink for 25% to 30% less than list price. If you see someone offering ink for your printer at one-half or one-third of list price, read the
fi ne print; it will almost always turn out to be third-party ink that is
“compatible” with your printer. That means it won’t hurt your printer
(no matter what some printer manufacturers claim), but don’t expect
good print life.
While I’m on the subject of longevity, I’d like to warn you against a
common practice of digital photographers who are looking for the most
permanent prints. Don’t try to test your prints’ display life by sticking

Profiling the Printer

prints in your window and exposing them to bright daylight and sunlight. This is a pointless exercise unless you’re actually planning on displaying your prints that way. Indoor illumination is 100 times less
intense and much less actinic than direct sunlight; the way prints react
to direct sunlight is no predictor of how they will react under normal
indoor lighting. It’s not even a good relative measure. In some cases
Paper A will fade much more quickly than Paper B in direct sunlight,
but under normal light levels, Paper B will turn out to fade faster than
Paper A.
Profiling the Printer
Anyone who does digital printing pretty quickly discovers that what you
see on the monitor screen isn’t exactly what you’ll get in the print. Some
of the discrepancies are due to inherent differences between the two
forms of output. Monitors, which display colors as combinations of red,
green, and blue light, portray a different color range than printers, which
generate tones and colors as combinations of cyan, magenta, yellow, and
black inks. There are colors that can be seen in a monitor’s RGB space
that simply can’t be printed; it’s a physical impossibility. Even six- and
eight-color printers don’t match the range of colors that you see on a
display.
Slide photographers have known for years that a projected slide looks
more brilliant than a print of the same photograph. Similarly, whites on
a display look brighter than on paper because our eyes see the luminous
display as being the brightest object in the field of view. In a print, other
objects in our field of vision compete with the print for the sensation of
pure white.
Within these limits, though, we would like the tones and colors in
the print to be as close as possible to what we see on the monitor. For
that we need a translation program that converts RGB data (what you
see) to the right CMYK data (what you print). That’s where the printer
profi le comes in. The profi le is a set of instructions that correct the color
and tonal values in the output data when that data is sent to the printer.
Printer profi les don’t affect what you see on the monitor or change anything in the image data. They only translate that data as it goes to the
printer.
The profi le minimizes the color errors produced by your printer. For
example, suppose the printer produces greens that are too yellow and
too dark. A printer profi le will correct for that by adjusting greens to be
lighter and bluer before passing that information on to the printer. The
changes the profi le makes to the data counterbalance the errors of the
printer, so the printer produces a green that looks much more like what
you saw on your monitor.
Because every printer needs corrections like this to match what’s
on the display, why isn’t that correction just built into the computer

425

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CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-1 Different inkjet
printers use different
inks, so inevitably they
portray colors differently.
The patches on the left
are 100% reds (maximum
amounts of magenta and
yellow ink) produced by
an HP 970 and an Epson
R2400 printer. The
patches on the right are
50% reds.

software so that we don’t have to worry about it? The answer is that no
two printers produce the same kinds of errors, and so no one universal
set of corrections will fi x things. That’s inherent in the nature of printers. Let’s look at an example that I hope will make this clear.
Imagine that you want to print out pure red on your printer. On the
monitor, that’s the red that would correspond to the RGB values of (255,
0, 0). On your printer, that maximum pure red corresponds to 100%
magenta and yellow dyes and no cyan or black dye. Logically, a 50% red
with RGB values of (255, 128, 128) should be half-strength magenta and
yellow inks.
I printed out those 100% and 50% reds on my 6-year-old HP DeskJet
970 and a state-of-the-art Epson Stylus R2400 (Figure 11-1). The former
is a four-color dye printer; the latter is an eight-color pigment printer.
The reds on the two printers don’t look anything alike. That’s a good
thing; it shows that printers are getting better. The much newer Epson
printer produces much richer color than the HP printer does.
So, how do we get consistent and accurate reds? The printer and ink
manufacturers can’t do it. Not unless they all agreed to use exactly the
same inks and papers, to lay them down exactly the same way, and to
never, ever make improvements on the print quality. No one has yet
invented the perfect printer and inks; there’s still reason to improve the
purity of color and to make the inks richer and more saturated. Manufacturers are not going to stop doing so any time soon. Instead, we turn
to software to solve the problem: printer-specific profi les that are designed
to correct the differences that are particular to your printer.
Figure 11-2 was printed out using custom profi les for my two printers
that were created by Cathy’s Profi les (see below). The reds don’t match
perfectly between the two printers—the Epson printer is always going
to produce purer and richer colors—but they’re close to each other, and
they’re both producing colors that are close to the correct shades of
red. That is the whole point of color management: to get consistency and
accuracy.

Profiling the Printer

427

Fig. 11-2 The same
100% and 50% reds
from Figure 11-1 look
very different after
they’ve been corrected
by custom color profiles
for each printer. The two
printers produce much
more similar (and more
accurate) results after
profiling.

Unless your printer is more than a few years old, you are already
using a profi le, even if you don’t know it. Uncorrected output from a
printer (Figure 11-3) is always a far cry from what you see on the
monitor. The reason that current printers produce pretty good color right
out of the box is because the printer driver that the manufacturer supplied with the printer includes a profi le for that printer.
In that case, why do we need to worry about a custom profi le at all?
The reason is that the “canned” profi le the printer manufacturer provides is correct for an average printer of that make, but every individual
printer behaves differently. A custom profi le, created for your own
printer and ink and paper combinations, will correct your printer’s
unique errors and produce an even more accurate rendering.
Printer profi les are specific for each printer/paper/ink/operating
system combination. Ideally one wants a profi le for every combination,
but a good custom profi le often works better with several papers than
the canned profi le the printer manufacturer provides. Changing to a
different brand of ink or a different operating system almost always
means you’ll need a new profi le.
On the positive side, though, printers don’t drift as monitors do. Once
you’ve settled on a particular printer, paper, and ink combination, your
profi le should be good for the life of that printer.
I once asked both Jonathan Sachs (author of the Profi le Mechanic
and Picture Window programs) and Michael Reichmann (owner of
http://www.luminous-landscape.com) what package I should buy to
make printer profi les. Both recommended that I not do it myself and
instead go to an outside service such as Cathy’s Profi les (http://www.
cathysprofi le.com). They told me that I would not be able to produce
results as good unless I was willing to spend several thousand dollars
on a real spectrophotometer. They both know how good my “lab skills”
are; they wouldn’t be saying this without reason.
Even an inexpensive printer profi ling package costs several hundred
dollars. A custom profi le from Cathy costs $40. I’d have to purchase

428

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-3 The top print
comes from an Epson
R2400 printer running
with no profiles enabled.
The bottom print was
made using a custom
color profile for this
printer. The profile makes
the Macbeth chart and
Kodak grayscale look
very close to how they
appear on the computer
monitor.

seven or eight profi les before it would cost me as much as one of the
cheap (and inferior) home-profi ling packages.
The Cathy’s Profi les website has clear and straightforward instructions. You print out some standard test charts on your printer and mail
them to her. About a week after she receives the test prints she e-mails
you your profi le. I’ve found Cathy’s custom profi le to be consistently
better than the printer manufacturer’s profi le. In some cases the differences were very subtle, in others they were dramatic.
It’s important that the test prints be made with printer color management turned off, or, failing that, the printer color settings need to be

Toning the B&W Print

exactly the same as they will be when you use the profi le. Every printer’s
interface and driver is different, and some of the printer software makes
it difficult to figure out how to do this, especially under Windows.
Sometimes it takes a bit of work to figure out the right settings to produce
proper test prints. This is not the fault of Cathy’s Profi le service; you
would run into the same predicament doing your own profi les. If you
have any doubts or questions about how to set up your printer, be sure
to ask Cathy for advice.
Get a custom profi le made sooner rather than later. A good profi le
means fewer test prints because you can better evaluate what the print
will look like on a monitor. Besides saving you time and money from
reduced wastage, starting off your printing with a custom profi le means
you won’t have to go back and revise earlier works. My Epson 2200
printer produced decent color out of the box, and I wasn’t sure that a
custom profi le would improve on it. But the Epson printer tended to
reproduce dark greens, which appear frequently in my landscapes, as a
duller olive green. I took that into account in my work, adjusting the
color values and saturation in my fi les to produce the best possible
looking prints. This adjustment meant that, as seen on the monitor,
greens were somewhat exaggerated and more brilliant in the shadows,
but this ensured than they printed out exactly the way I wanted.
A custom profi le from Cathy substantially reduced my Epson 2200’s
color distortion and produced more accurate overall color saturation. I
had to go back and revise a portfolio of two dozen photographs that I
had just fi nished to take into account the difference in printer behavior.
The improved results were worth it, but I kicked myself for not having
gotten a custom profi le a few months earlier.
Toning the B&W Print
As often as not, you’ll want to “tone” your B&W restorations before
printing them out. Many old photographs were never neutral in color.
Some processes naturally produced brown or sepia-toned prints, cyanotypes were a strong blue-cyan color, and gold toning could produce a
purplish hue. When making modern silver-gelatin prints, photographers
and studios often used warm-tone papers and chemicals to produce a
print on the warm side of neutral. Even when the original pristine print
was completely neutral in color, people have an expectation that old
photographs have an antique, brownish look to them. Care and Identification of 19th-Century Photographic Prints, which I recommended in the
Introduction, is a good guide to original print tone and color.
Several different techniques can be used to tone digital prints. If
you’re fortunate enough to be printing on one of the new-generation
Epson printers that use the Ultrachrome K3 inks, the printer control
panel has an option called “Advanced B&W Photo,” which works so well
that I don’t usually bother with other toning controls.

429

430

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-4 Epson printers
using the Ultrachrome K3
inks offer excellent B&W
print control through the
Advanced B&W Photo
option. There are preset
color tones for Neutral,
Cool, Warm, and Sepia,
but the real power lies
in the Advanced B&W
Photo options, shown in
Figure 11-5.

The Color Toning drop-down menu (Figure 11-4) offers Neutral,
Cool, Warm, and Sepia tones. Make your choice and click the Settings
button to bring up the Advanced B&W Photo control panel with a color
selection wheel (Figure 11-5). You can reposition a setting point in the
color wheel to choose exactly the overall hue you want for the print and
move it closer to or further from the neutral center points to vary the
strength of the tone. There are sliders to fi ne-tune brightness, contrast,
the strength of toning in the shadows, and the strength of toning in the
highlights, selectively. The Preview window makes using these controls
intuitive, and the results look wonderful. The toning has no undesirable
color crossover nor artificial look to it.
If you intend to do strictly B&W printing, a third-party monochrome
inking system like Piezography will solve your toning problems; the
software drivers that accompany these ink sets include the controls you
need to precisely refi ne the color of your prints. You can also fi nd a huge
amount of online expertise among the user groups and forums devoted
to the various systems.
There are also great ways to tone prints that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t depend on special
ink sets or printer models. Picture Window has the Tint transformation
option. This will produce a monochrome, toned version of any original,
B&W or color (Figure 11-6). It is simple to use; launching the transformation opens a control panel with a slider that controls the strength of
the effects and a grayscale at the bottom. Shift-clicking on the grayscale

Fig. 11-5 Epsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Advanced B&W Photo
options let you precisely
adjust print density,
contrast, and color in
the printer controls. The
color wheel at right lets
you pick just what tone
you want the print to
have and how neutral
or saturated it will be.
Prints come out perfectly
monochrome, with no
sign of color crossover.
This is a great advance in
out-of-the-box B&W
printing.

Fig. 11-6 Picture
Windowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gray/Tint
transformation is an
excellent and simple-touse way of producing
monochrome prints from
any original, B&W or
color. Set a control point
slider, and use the color
picker wheel to adjust
the color and density of
that point. The whole
picture will be toned
uniformly, as can be seen
in the Preview window at
top right.

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CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-7 You can set
multiple tint points in the
Tint transformation
option to produce more
complex toning effects.
Here, I’ve set Point 2
one-third of the way up
the tonal scale and a
Point 3 two-thirds of the
way. I’ve assigned them
different hues to simulate
selenium split-toning. For
this illustration shot I
exaggerated the toning
to make it more visible in
the reproduction by
giving Point 2 a very
strong red-brown color
and Point 3 a visibly
bluish cast. Because
these colors are
adjustable, along with
the total amount of
tinting applied via the
percentage slider in the
control panel, you can
produce toning effects as
intense or subtle as you
like.

adds control points to it. Double-clicking on the number above a point
opens up the color picture window, and you can assign a hue to the
grayscale at that numbered point. For simple toning jobs, you’ll probably
just assign one point in the middle of the curve, pick a color for it, and
be very satisfied. Once you’ve decided on the color, you can slide that
control point to the left or right to change the distribution of tones (it
works a lot like the midpoint slider in the Levels tool). All the time
the Preview window shows you how your choices will affect the
photograph.
You can simulate more complicated toning, such as split toning
(Figure 11-7) or other kinds of combination toning that render different
values with different hues. Add two or more control points to the grayscale, assign them individual colors, and reposition them to refi ne the
tonality of the print. It’s that easy.
Photoshop’s option for toning monochrome images is not as intuitive.
You can tone by adding midpoints to curves and adjusting them up and
down. This is a good place to use the gray eyedropper tool (Figure 11-8).

Toning the B&W Print

433

Fig. 11-8 You can apply
tints to B&W
photographs in
Photoshop using a
Curves adjustment layer,
as this screenshot
illustrates. First select
the tone you desire by
double-clicking the
midtone eyedropper in
the Curves control panel
and choosing the target
color in the Color Picker.
That assigns a custom
color to that eyedropper.
When you click that
eyedropper on a midtone
in the photograph, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll
get a set of curves like
those in Figure 11-9 and
a tinted photograph like
that in Figure 11-10.

Double-click that tool to open up the color picture window, assign the
hue you want to the eyedropper, and then click with the eyedropper on
a gray area of the photograph (it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to be a perfect midtone).
That sets midpoint values on the curves to create the hue you want
(Figure 11-9).
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best to do this in an adjustment layer and merge the change into
the original image by setting the blend mode to Color, which alters the
hue of the image without altering the values. This also lets you use the
opacity slider to vary the strength of the toning (Figure 11-10). If you
also want to alter brightness, create another Curves adjustment layer,
set its blend mode to Luminosity, and make your tonal adjustments
there. This is a good method to use if you want to keep your images in
16-bit form and be able to manipulate them later.
For really sophisticated monochrome hue control in Photoshop look
to Duotone mode. In graphic arts, duotones are photographs printed with
two printing plates and two inks. Commonly, one ink is black and the
other tinted, to give the printed image a bit of color. There is also tritone

434

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-9 These are the curves that the midtone eyedropper produced for Figure 11-8 when I set the
midtone eyedropper to a brown hue with the Color Picker and clicked the eyedropper on the photograph. I applied these curves in the Curves adjustment layer in Figure 11-10.

Toning the B&W Print

435

Fig. 11-10 Once you’ve
created a tinting Curves
adjustment layer, you can
control the strength of
the tint by changing the
opacity. I’ve dialed it
back to 53% in this
screenshot, which is the
right level to make the
image look like a browntone photograph. Notice
that the blend mode has
been set to Color, so the
Curves adjustment only
alters tint and not
brightness or darkness.

and quadtone printing, involving three and four inks, respectively.
Duotone mode in Photoshop creates those same effects on your computer
printer.
Duotone mode, however, has a couple of disadvantages. The first is
that you’ll be throwing away your 16-bit data. You must convert the
photograph to 8-bit grayscale mode before you’ll be able to convert it to
duotone. You should never convert your only copy of a restoration to
duotone; instead, duplicate that fi le and use that to create a duotone for
your output.
The other disadvantage is that duotone printing is not something
with which most photographers are familiar. One has to climb something of a learning curve to get any good at it. Fortunately, Photoshop
comes with a bunch of predefi ned duotone settings that you can load
and manipulate until you get the hang of creating your own.
As soon as you click on Duotone mode, the duotone interface opens
up. Initially it looks like Figure 11-11. This is just ordinary B&W printing

with a single ink. The Type drop-down menu indicates monotone: Only
Ink 1 is active. You’ll also see what looks like an empty box with a
diagonal line through it: that’s actually a button that activates a Curves
tool for that ink. It works just like the Curves tools you use for adjusting
image values. Next to it is a solid black square button. This indicates the
color of the ink—clicking on it opens up the Color Picker and gives you
access to the color libraries, so you can select the color of ink you desire.
Unless you’re trying to print out a cyanotype, you’re always going to
want Ink 1 to be black.
To get to duotones (and tritones and quadtones), you could go to the
Type drop-down menu and select the mode you want, but that’s not
what I recommend if you’re new to duotones. Instead, click the Load
button on the right. Open up the Duotones folder; inside it you’ll fi nd a
folder named PANTONE(R), which contains many preset duotone settings (Figure 11-12).
Don’t worry about all the numbers and percentages, just focus on the
name of the color. Pick one that seems appropriate to the hue you want
to apply to the print. For example, Burgundy is a good choice if you’re
trying to emulate strong selenium tone. Double-click your selection to
load it, and the Preview window will show you how the photograph has
changed (Figure 11-13). If you don’t like the color you loaded, click Load
and choose a different setting. Don’t worry about how strong the tint is;
you get to adjust that later.
If you can’t fi nd exactly the hue you want among the preset offerings,
click the square ink color button to the left of the ink’s name to bring
up a color library with all the other inks the Pantone set offers. Move
the slider up and down the rainbow bar, and wherever you stop a selection of inks in that hue appears next to it. Single-click one of those inks,
and the preview instantly changes (Figure 11-14). Double-click on it,
and that selection gets applied back to the main duotone window. If you
don’t like any of the Pantone colors, click the Book drop-down menu to
bring up a list of other color books from which to choose. If you don’t

Toning the B&W Print

437

Fig. 11-12 You can fi nd
many colored-ink choices
in the PANTONE(R)
Duotones folder. Select a
color name that sounds
appropriate to the tint
you want to give your
photograph, and doubleclick it to load the ink
into the Duotone Options
control panel.

Fig. 11-13 The Duotone
Options control panel
shows which inks youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
selected and previews
what the fi nal print color
will look like. You can
bring up controls to
change the color or
intensity of the hue by
clicking the square
buttons to the left of the
inkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name.

438

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-14 If you want to
change or customize the
color of the duotone ink,
clicking the colored
square next to the ink’s
name opens up the Color
Libraries, which contain
thousands of individual
ink colors you can choose
among. Move the slider
up and down the
rainbow-hued scale to
pick a subset of inks to
examine. A new ink
choice is refl ected in the
Duotone Options control
panel and in the preview
image.

want to use one of the books of prepackaged colors, click the Picker
button to the right to open the traditional Photoshop color picker within
which you can assign your color.
Once you’ve waded through all of the color choices and picked Ink
2, you’ll be back in the Options window. The tinted effect will usually
be too strong, looking less like you toned the photograph than handcolored it, as in Figure 11-13. To fi x that, turn to the Curve buttons next
to the inks.
What a curve tells us here is how much of an ink will be applied to
each value in the photograph. The higher the curve, the more ink that
will be applied. So, for example, grabbing the midpoint of the Ink 2
curve and dragging it downward decreases the amount of colored ink
that would be printed (Figure 11-15). That reduces the tint and also
lightens the print. If you don’t want to lighten the print, you need to
add more black ink to compensate for the colored ink you removed. Close
the curve for Ink 2, open the curve for Ink 1 (Figure 11-16), and drag

Toning the B&W Print

439

Fig. 11-15 The Curves
button in the Duotone
Options control panel
lets you control how
much of each ink is
applied to each density.
The top fi gure shows the
default amount of
burgundy ink being
applied in Figure 11-13.
To reduce the intensity of
the color, I dragged the
curve down, as shown in
the lower fi gure. That
decreases the amount of
colored ink in the
photograph, making the
image lighter as well as
more neutral. To keep the
densities the same, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll
need to increase the
amount of black ink (see
Figure 11-16).

Fig. 11-16 Here are the
changes I made to the
black ink for Figure 1113. The default curve is
at the top. Raising the
midpoint (bottom fi gure)
increases the amount of
black ink used to
compensate for the
reduction in burgundy
ink. That keeps the
photograph at its original
density, as shown in
Figure 11-17.

the midpoint of the curve up until the brightness of the print looks
appropriate (Figure 11-17).
If you’re thinking to yourself that this is rather complicated, that’s
OK. It is complicated, which is why I’ve spent so much time explaining how to use this one tool in Photoshop. The duotone controls are
much appreciated by B&W photographers who want to be able to
have complete and precise control over the color and tonality of their
prints. Honestly, it’s a bit of overkill for our needs, but it’s what
Photoshop offers us. If duotone is your cup of tea, you’ll have to experiment with it for some time before you master it. Don’t even think
about tackling tritone or quadtone effects until you get the hang of
duotone.
Probably the easiest way to do toning in Photoshop without messing
up the original image is to use the PixelGenius PhotoKit plug-in
that I described in Chapter 3 on page 81. PixelGenius PhotoKit has a
B&W Toning Set (Figure 11-18) that includes scripts for a variety of
standard tonings. The quality of the results is aesthetically excellent,
fully as good as you’d expect from color adjustments created by some
of the top gurus in the Photoshop world. I doubt that you could
create better-looking toning than this yourself; I know that I certainly
couldn’t.
PixelGenius PhotoKit works just as well with 16-bit as 8-bit fi les. Its
effects are applied as new layers on top of the original photograph
(Figure 11-19), so the source photograph, whether it’s B&W or color,
remains unaltered at the bottom of the layer stack. Each toning is applied
in a new layer, so you can create a whole bunch of toning variations
through repeated applications of PixelGenius PhotoKit and decide which
one you like best later (or keep them all, as I did in this case).

Display and Storage Conditions for Maximum Print Longevity

441

Fig. 11-18 The
PixelGenius PhotoKit
plug-in, accessed via
Photoshop’s Automate
menu, is a great thirdparty solution to the
problem of making
beautifully toned B&W
prints. PixelGenius
PhotoKit works on 8or 16-bit color or B&W
originals.

Display and Storage Conditions for Maximum
Print Longevity
The rules for caring for digital prints aren’t all that much different from
the ones you’d follow for conventional color photographic prints. Broadly
put, there are prints you have on display and prints you have stored
away. In either situation, the important guiding principle is the same
one that doctors follow: “First, do no harm.” That means avoiding bad
practices and display or storage conditions that shorten print life.
Prints on display should be framed under glass or acrylic. This keeps
dirt and grime away from the print. Even ordinary framing glass markedly extends print life by fi ltering out some of the UV light that would
otherwise attack the inks.
If possible, put a spacer matte between the print and the glass, so the
surface of the print does not directly touch the glass. Use unbuffered,
acid-free archival matte board for the spacer. Avoid buffered boards;
many dyes and coloring agents don’t like the slightly alkaline environments the buffer creates and deteriorate more quickly in those
conditions.
Also avoid wooden frames. Wood contains compounds called lignins
that break down over time and release chemicals such as peroxides that
can oxidize the colors in prints. The “gas fading” problem of several years
back that caused some Epson inkjet prints to fade in days was an oxidation problem.

442

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Fig. 11-19 I produced
three toned variations of
the color photograph in
Figure 11-18 just by
selecting the degree of
Sepia Tone I wanted from
PixelGenius PhotoKitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
drop-down menu and
clicking OK. PixelGenius
PhotoKit creates a new
layer for each effect, so I
could preserve all three
strengths of sepia toning
(portrayed here). My
original photograph is
intact in the background
layer, as the layer stack
shows.

Considerable argument surrounds whether lacquers and laminates
are good ideas. In the short term, lacquer and lamination certainly
prevent damaging chemicals, moisture, and some amount of UV from
getting to the print surface. The vexing question is what happens in the
long term. Many conventional color photographs have had their lives
drastically shortened by lacquers made by some of the best companies
in the business specifically for the purpose of protecting said photos.
Solvents and plastics in the lacquers and adhesives in the laminates
concern me. This may be unwarranted paranoia on my part, but I am

Display and Storage Conditions for Maximum Print Longevity

443

Fig. 11-20 Under no
circumstances should you
store your photographs,
conventional or digital, in
an album like this! These
“magic” photo albums,
with their sticky pages,
do more than just
damage photographs.
The glue hardens with
time, so it becomes
impossible to remove the
photograph from the
album that is ruining it.

inclined to avoid them. There’s no good way to run accelerated tests on
how these compounds interact with the prints; only time will tell
whether, over the long run, they enhance or diminish print life.
For prints that are stored away in albums or boxes, I have a different set of admonitions. If you sleeve individual prints, use Mylar or
polyethylene sleeves. Beware of vinyl, which will destroy prints in
short order. Even acetate sleeves are not good for long-term preservation;
the plastic gradually breaks down and releases acetic acid. It’s a slow
process, but we are trying to think in time spans of several decades
or more.

444

CHAPTER 11 Printing Tips

Avoid “magic” photo albums at all costs! Those are the ones with the
sticky pages that have plastics overleaves. You peel back the overleaf and
position the picture where you want it on the page. The releasable adhesive holds the photo in place, and the overleaf protects it. That’s the
theory, but it’s not the reality of it.
The truth is that those albums contain all sorts of nasty compounds
that will wreak havoc on your prints (Figure 11-20). The adhesive isn’t
close to being archival and furthermore may harden and permanently
bond to the print over time. Should that happen, when problems start
to appear there will be no way of removing the print from the album
that won’t destroy the print.
Companies like Light Impressions make storage boxes and albums
suitable for digital prints. As with matte board, what you’re looking for
are unbuffered, acid-free materials.
Ultimately, the saving grace of digital restoration and printing is that
it’s relatively easy to turn out a replacement print that looks just as good
as the original one, as long as the digital fi le has been properly archived
(see the next chapter). “Relatively easy,” though, is not the same as “no
trouble at all.” It will cost you some time and expense to turn out that
replacement print, and you may need to make some tone and color
adjustments to the digital fi le to get the new print to look just like the
old one did. The best option is to avoid all of that by properly caring for
the original print—reprinting is your fallback solution, not your best
one.

C H A PTE R 1 2

Archiving and Permanence
The Special Needs of Digital Storage
Once you have successfully restored a photograph, you’ll need to preserve that restoration. That digital fi le is no less important and valuable
than the original, deteriorated photograph. In the future it is likely to
be the only good or even usable rendition of that image.
We need to think about the long term. The photographs you are
restoring range from several decades to more than a century old. If
you’re taking photographic preservation and restoration seriously, you
have to be thinking on the same timescale for your archives. It’s not
about whether the restored photographs will be viewable 5 years from
now, but whether they will be accessible 50 or 100 years from now.
The foremost misconception newcomers to the field have about digital
photographs (including digital restorations) is that archiving presents no
problems because digital fi les can be copied perfectly. That is an important difference between physical and electronic photographs: Physical
photographs can only be duplicated with some loss of fidelity, whereas
those digital 1s and 0s can be replicated indefi nitely into the future. But
there are caveats. Your digital restorations are theoretically immortal,
but you’ll realize that permanence only if you follow good preservation
techniques and maintain ongoing vigilance for deterioration.
Successful archiving means:
• Keeping digital photographs intact
• Being able to read the data
• Understanding the data
• Lastly, being able to fi nd the data!
This fi nal item is not a problem that is unique to digital fi les; any archive
needs a good fi ling system. I’m limiting this discussion to problems
unique to digital archiving, but I want you to remember that the biggest
library in the world is useless if you don’t have a good way to find the
book you need.

445

446

CHAPTER 12 Archiving and Permanence

Fig. 12-1 Film-based
photographs, like the top
fi gure, start deteriorating
from the day they’re
made, but they usually
do so in a gradual
and predictable way
(bottom). This photo
developed a pink
highlight stain and lost
magenta and cyan image
density. When
deterioration is not too
advanced, restoration is
feasible—that’s the
whole point of this book.

In the remainder of this chapter, I’ll talk about the best media for
storing your images, suitable data formats for storing them, and how to
minimize your chances of losing your fi les. Before getting into the
details, I’d like to explain why this attention to technical minutiae is
necessary. It’s time to get physical.
In a Material World
There’s a widespread and mistaken belief that digital fi les don’t undergo
deterioration as fi lm does (Figure 12-1). Digital data may theoretically
be immortal, but the real world is not quite so cooperative. Have you
ever had a floppy or a CD become unreadable, a hard disk crash, or a
backup tape behave unreliably? Digital data obviously isn’t
impervious.
In truth, the digital restoration, both the print and electronic fi le,
can prove less permanent than the original fi lm-based photograph.
While digital print deterioration will be immediately visible, just as it is
with silver-based photographs, electronic fi le deterioration won’t be. You
may see no outward signs that the storage medium (or the data it con-

In a Material World

447

Fig. 12-2 Digital
files will show no
deterioration initially
(top), but beyond a
certain point, information
will disappear suddenly
and often irreversibly.
This JPEG (bottom) had
some bytes corrupted
midfile. This is currently
not a recoverable loss.

tains) has deteriorated until you attempt to open the fi le and it looks
like Figure 12-2—at that point, it’s a bit too late.
Digital photographs are binary data: strings of 1s and 0s assembled
into bytes, pixels, and fi nally photographs. One ought not mistake a 1
for a 0, but in the real world it happens. We’ve all had the experience
of fi nding that we can’t read a phone number we wrote down because
it became smudged or smeared. Numbers may be fi xed and immutable,
but their physical manifestations aren’t. Even communicating those
digits you are sure of may fail. Think about how difficult it can be to
tell someone your phone number during a noisy party. These are problems that data is heir to.
No existing storage medium actually records 1s and 0s in digital form;
they’re recorded as analog signals that are interpreted digitally. Even
old-fashioned punched tape and cards are analog signals. It might seem
that there is nothing more unambiguous than a hole, but think back to
Florida in November 2000 to realize that there can be malformed punch
holes in cards that both machines and human beings have trouble interpreting correctly and unambiguously.
Similarly, magnetic regions on tape or disk and data pits on CDs vary
in size and intensity. Recordable CDs, for example, store data in small
regions whose reflectivity differs from that of the surrounding medium.
A laser beam in the CD player scans the CD and measures the reflectivity
of the disk, point by point. When this analog measurement changes by

448

CHAPTER 12 Archiving and Permanence

Fig. 12-3 (a) This is how we imagine a digital signal to be: a clear and unambiguous string of 1s
and 0s. (b) This is what a digital signal really looks like. (c) As the storage medium degrades, the
signal strength weakens (and the noise may increase). The more the signal deviates from the imaginary ideal, the greater the chance that it will be misinterpreted by the computer. Serious and uncorrectable numbers of errors become inevitable.

more than a certain amount, the electronics in the CD reader interpret
it as data and convert it to 1s and 0s.
So, our precise 1s and 0s don’t have a physical presence; we extract
them from recordings that are actually analog. Ideally, we imagine a
digital signal to look much like Figure 12-3a, with nice sharply defi ned
pulses. Anyone can readily see that this signal starts out with a long
pulse, a short pulse, and another long pulse. If I tell you that a long
pulse is supposed to represent a 1 and a short pulse a 0, we’d all agree
to read this as “101.” That’s the theory, anyway. In reality, square waves
with perfectly sharp sides and flat full-strength tops don’t exist. The
random vagaries of the real world and normal electronic noise make
digital signals look more like the jagged and rounded peaks in Figure
12-3b.
Here’s what’s magic about digital processing. As long as the underlying signal is strong enough and the noise isn’t too bad, we can figure
out which jagged pulses are really 1s and which are 0s. Digital electronics don’t merely reproduce the noisy signal of Figure 12-3b, they correctly interpret it and report it as “101.” At each and every stage of digital
data processing, the electronics take that noisy signal and push it back
to being as close to perfect binary data as it can.
This is why we can make perfect copies of digital fi les ad infi nitum
and run bits of data back and forth a million times through the innards
of our computers without losing any of them. It’s not that the digital
data is inviolate, it’s that at every stage we can almost always restore the
digital signal to its original form.

It’s Just a Matter of Time

Picking Up the Pieces
Occasionally data is lost. A hill or valley in the signal may be unusually
shallow, or there may be noise spikes. When these things happen, sometimes a 1 gets misinterpreted as a 0 or vice versa. When you’re moving
around trillions of bits, it’s really important to catch all of those errors.
That’s done by adding error-controlling data to the original information.
We can design elaborate error correction schemes that will tell us when
bits are misinterpreted and even correct multiple-bit errors.
The most extreme form of error correction exists in ordinary CD and
DVD disks. Bits of dust and scratches can obliterate hundreds of bits of
data. The disks’ data formats use an incredibly complex error correction
scheme that can restore dozens upon dozens of errors flawlessly. Most
people don’t realize it, but almost every time they read data from a disk,
there are errors that get fi xed invisibly by error correction techniques.
Error correction is a necessity; without it all large data files would
become corrupted. So why doesn’t that make it all OK forever?
It’s Just a Matter of Time
All storage media degrade. The dye layer in a recordable CD that actually
holds the data gradually fades, just as the dyes in color fi lms do. Random
thermal motion of the molecules will gradually demagnetize the domains
in magnetic storage. As the dye fades and the domains demagnetize, the
signal the playback drive reads gets weaker and weaker. Degradation
begins the moment you record data and continues unabated until you
re-record that data. Hardware ages, too. CD players can get dirty or go
out of alignment after prolonged use.
These are gradual processes that reduce the signal and increase the
noise. As the quality of the signal goes down, the error rate goes up. Our
archiving problem is that this is all invisible to us, as long as error correction codes catch and fi x all those errors. When the error rate becomes
greater than the correction code can handle, though, the computer
system starts reporting that it can’t successfully read a fi le, or it may not
even mount a disk at all. From our perspective something has suddenly
gone wrong, but it was really a gradual deterioration that was hidden
from us until the computer could no longer cope with it. One day, you
fi nd that uncorrectable errors have “suddenly” popped up (Figure
12-3c).
CD/DVD Diagnostic (http://www.infi nadyne.com) is a Windowsonly program that will test CDs and DVDs for read errors, to let you
catch them going bad before they become unreadable. It also includes
data recovery utilities to help you recover fi les from bad CDs. CD/DVD
Diagnostic (with a 14-day trial download) isn’t as thorough or capable
as hardware diagnostic systems, but it’s about as good as it gets for a

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home system, and it’s a heck of a lot better than just spot-checking your
CDs every year or so.
Magnetic media are different. Unlike the dye layers in a CD or DVD,
the magnetic recording layer in a hard drive is not likely to physically
degrade—it’s just that the signal will get weaker over time. That means
you can very simply restore magnetic data to its original pristine state
by copying it off the drive and writing it back to the drive. That resets
the clock on deterioration. By periodically refreshing your magnetic
media, you can maintain the fi les indefi nitely (until the drive fails physically). Which brings me to my next topic: What are the good storage
media?
All Storage Is Not Created Equal
Archiving fi lm images is simple. Buy a deep freezer, package the photographs in airtight polyethylene bags, stick them in the freezer, and ignore
them. They’ll still be good a couple of hundred years from now, assuming someone pays the electric bill. Digital archiving requires an ongoing
maintenance plan that allows for the time and expense of periodically
re-recording the data. This is where many newcomers mess up. Their
strategy is “back up and forget.” Down the road this will most certainly
cause them grief.
As I’ve just explained, digital storage usually seems perfect until it is
suddenly not. It is most important that we periodically copy old stored
data before we actually see bad bits. Also, we need to periodically spotcheck our older records, or run a program such as CD/DVD Diagnostic,
so that we don’t get caught short by degrading data.
We want to keep the need for maintenance to a minimum, not only
to save time and money, but to reduce the chances of getting caught by
surprise. To some extent that means predicting the future, and we’re all
prone to make mistakes that way. Figure 12-4 shows a variety of media
I own that are no longer readable for one or more of the reasons I’m
about to present.
Analog tape is right out. The failure rate for those formats is appalling; look at how often things like QIC-80/Travan backup tapes go bad.
The media all come with “lifetime warranties,” but that doesn’t seem to
prevent tape data from going south in a matter of months to years. It’s
cheap storage, but you’ll be lucky if anything is readable in 10 years.
Digital tape is better, but it’s costly, and tape is still physically fragile.
Flexible magnetic disks are also a very poor choice. Whether they’re
ordinary floppies or high-density media like Zip disks or Superdisks,
they have poor reliability for archiving. They’re also not particularly
cheap, and it isn’t that hard to run up many gigabytes each year of digital
image fi les. Except for their convenience for swapping small fi les between
friends and computers, these media are obsolete: CDs are faster, cheaper,
more reliable, and better if you have to move fi les of any size.

All Storage Is Not Created Equal

451

Fig. 12-4 Are you
unintentionally
committing your
photographs to a
graveyard of lost data?
All of these media hold
data of mine that is now
unreadable for one
reason or another.

Recordable DVDs have great storage capacity, but they are currently
less certain tools for archiving because we have less data on their longterm permanence. That uncertainty will certainly be reduced with time,
but at the moment I’m not entirely comfortable with using them for
archiving. Today, I would defi nitely avoid dual-layer DVD disks. The way
these disks get double the capacity of conventional DVDs is by having a
second data layer underneath the outer layer. The outer layer is semitransparent, so the underlying one can be seen through it. Therein lies
the potential problem; the signal that comes back from a dual-layer DVD
can’t be as strong as that from a single-layer DVD. A weaker signal means
that when the disk deteriorates, the data will reach the point of unreadability sooner than it will for a single-layer DVD.
It may turn out this is not a practical problem; maybe we will fi nd
that single-layer DVDs are good for 150 years, and the dual layer ones
for a “mere” 75. Maybe not, though. As long as the durability of all these
media is still under investigation, sacrificing any data life for a modest
2× increase in storage capacity seems very imprudent. It’s also not currently cost effective.
It does seem that most drives will support DVD+ and DVD− formats
in perpetuity, so we dodged that obsolete-format bullet, but in the future
there may be other format-compatibility issues. The “blue” DVD format
wars have yet to be settled, and there’s no guarantee we won’t wind up

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CHAPTER 12 Archiving and Permanence

with one format declining into insignificance (and that means
obsolescence).
Removable drive cartridges have good capacities, but unless they are
entirely self-contained (sealed units that include the read heads), they’re
not reliable enough for serious archiving. That precludes using the traditional Syquest/Orb/Iomega varieties of cartridges.
Even sealed cartridge units are unacceptable if they require proprietary hardware support like special cradles or readers (or software drivers).
You can be pretty certain that the company making these devices now
will not be making nor supporting that model in 20 years; there’s a
pretty good chance the company won’t even be in business. More on
this in a few pages; it’s the big problem with these formats.
On the other hand, conventional hard drives, whether internal or
external, are excellent for archiving. The external ones are best of all
because it’s easy to have multiple archives (you should always have two
copies of anything you really care about) and to add capacity by buying
more drives. Hard drives are extremely reliable these days, and data
recovery is possible from even heavily damaged platters, although it’s
pricey. The odds of you losing everything on a hard drive are quite small.
The odds of you losing anything that’s been duplicated on two hard
drives is insignificant.
Hard-drive data degrades slowly, but it is easy to refresh the data by
reading it off of the drive and writing it back. It costs about $0.50/gigabyte to maintain duplicate external hard-drive archives as of mid-2006,
and prices are dropping daily. That’s a penny an image for archiving
20-MB image fi les, and the process of archiving is as fast and painless
as copying fi les from one hard drive to another. In fact, no other storage
device is faster.
If you expect to be amassing large amounts of data, a removable
hard-drive “bay” or “drawer” is defi nitely the route for you. See Chapter
2, Hardware for Restoration (page 40), for further information on this
option. Hard-drive bays have several advantages. Your storage capabilities are unlimited; every time you need more storage, just buy another
hard drive and tray. Regular internal hard-drive storage is half the cost
or less of a prepackaged external hard drive. Even when you add in the
cost of a tray, it is still a lot less money per gigabyte than an external
hard drive. Removable hard-drive trays are ideal when you want to
maintain duplicate archives, especially if you want keep one off site.
CD-R is another good storage medium. Its biggest limitation is the
storage capacity; these days 700 MB doesn’t seem like all that much. In
all other respects it’s a winner. High-quality blanks are a little expensive
per megabyte than hard-drive storage, but you don’t have to invest in
100+ gigabytes at one time. It’s easy to make duplicate archives that you
can keep off site in case of fi re, theft, or other disaster. High-quality
blanks should have a data storage life of decades. I recommend Kodak
Preservation Gold CDs. Best of all, CD-Rs are permanent; you can’t
accidentally write over an existing fi le.

Can You Hear Me Now?

One caution about archiving to CDs. Use standard CD authoring
software like Nero or Easy CD Creator for PCs or Toast for Macs. Do not
use programs that let you “drag and drop” fi les on your CDs just as if
they were floppy disks or hard drives (for example, Direct CD). Disks
written in “drag-and-drop” formats can only be read on computers that
have special software that can interpret these formats. Such software
may not be available in the future. Furthermore, this format turns out
to be nowhere near as robust as the normal data format. I and other
people have had “direct” CDs become unreliable or entirely unreadable
on a short timescale, while conventionally authored CDs have held up
just fi ne.
I don’t recommend using online storage for your archive, even though
the companies offering the services provide extremely reliable storage.
First of all, it’s not very feasible when you are generating hundreds of
megabytes or even gigabytes of data. Even with a high-speed connection,
you’re talking about hours to upload your files and then read them back
to confi rm that they arrived intact.
Furthermore, storing your data with online services has the same
problem that archiving on proprietary cartridges does: When the
company disappears (and all companies do sooner or later), so may your
prospects for retrieving your data.

Can You Hear Me Now?
One of the things that makes digital storage so problematical is that different brands of media have very different levels of reliability and durability. People have long known that about magnetic tape, but it’s just as
true of floppy disks and CDs (these days the reliability of hard drives is
so high that this isn’t really an issue). Some particularly bad CD blanks
have lasted for as little as a few years before starting to develop read
errors, even though they were supposed to last for decades. This is why
I am distrustful of DVD blanks, especially double-sided ones, for archiving
until we get more real-world data. I don’t know that they have problems,
but I don’t know that they don’t, either.
Folks get into long arguments about how long different media will
last; there’s even the possibility that all the cautions I’ve given you aren’t
necessary. It’s prudent to take the precautions because “better safe than
sorry” are the watchwords of good archiving. I admit that it may turn
out that CDs and other media really will last many decades as the manufacturers claim. Still, when it comes to archiving my work, I’d rather err
on the side of caution and hope that will let me avoid unpleasant repercussions years from now.
What we can be certain of, though, is that data formats will change
and old formats and media will become obsolete. Over time measured
in decades the problems of data deterioration pale compared to those of
equipment obsolescence. In the year 2050 your highest quality Zip disks

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may still be readable (although I doubt it), but it’s absolutely certain that
Zip drives will be obsolete by then. It’s not much use having perfect
media if you don’t have any way to read it.
Don’t be on the cutting edge of the technology. You don’t want to be
one of the trendsetters; you want to be one of the teeming masses that
follow. Security and survival lie in numbers. The more popular and
standardized a format is, the more likely you’ll be able to read it in the
future. It’s still not hard nor expensive to get drives that read 51/4-inch
floppies although, by today’s standards, relatively few people ever used
them and relatively little data is stored that way. There’s a hundred times
as much data stored on 31/2 -inch floppies and the drives will certainly
be available for a long time. There’s a million times more data archived
onto CDs, in both private individuals’ and major institutions’ collections,
than on floppies. Devices that can read CDs will be around for a very
long time. IDE and SCSI hard-drive interfaces will also endure. There’s
so much data stored on such drives that the demand for hardware that
can read them will exist long after the data formats and media have been
superseded by better ones.
Make sure your storage format is supported by more than one manufacturer. That’s the biggest thing that’s wrong with proprietary formats
and the main reason why most of the removable cartridges on the
market—reliability concerns aside—are unacceptable. They are only
readable with the manufacturer’s hardware, and third-party support is
minimal.
This problem isn’t limited to cartridges. Many Macintosh users were
left with stranded data when Apple abruptly stopped supporting 800-KB
Mac-format floppy disks. In most cases one could transfer data or programs to 1.4-MB floppies or network the data between machines, but I
have at least one copy-protected, key-disk program that even Steve
Wozniak couldn’t tell me how to port over to a newer PowerBook.
Babel Fish
Assuming you’ve passed the hurdles of safely recording and retrieving
your data, can you figure out what it means? You need software that
can interpret the format you used. That means staying away from proprietary fi le formats as much as possible and using the most popular
ones, the same way you did when choosing the physical storage format.
Bit-mapped formats like BMP and uncompressed TIFF are almost universally readable. TIFF is excellent because it can save both 8-bit and
16-bit images. That means you can save your fi nished restorations with
maximum fidelity. The 16-bit uncompressed TIFF format is widely supported and can be read by lots of different programs perfectly. TIFF also
lets you store your color profi le with the fi le.
These uncompressed formats provide some measure of protection
against data deterioration; if you lose some bits, only the pixels contain-

Final Words

ing those bits are affected. With the right software you can reconstruct
the rest of the image entirely intact, and the formats are simple enough
that such software is easy to write. That means it will be available for
all sorts of different platforms for many years.
Compressed formats are less physically robust; the encoding schemes
that shrink the fi le size make it so that each data byte affects many
pixels. A bad byte in a JPEG fi le can prevent the entire remainder of the
image from loading correctly, much as in Figure 12-2. JPEG (at very low
compression ratios of, say, 1 : 2 or 1 : 3) is still a good archiving format
for 8-bit data because JPEG readers will be available on just about every
platform for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately JPEGs are limited to
sRGB color space, which has a relatively small color gamut.
Compressed TIFF is also a good format as long as you use one of the
most popular programs, like Photoshop, to do the compressing. There
are literally dozens of different TIFF variants, some of which are so
obscure and little used that future support for them is dubious. Translator software like GraphicConverter (for Macs) and DeBabelizer can overcome many of the format hurdles you’ll encounter, but why create
unnecessary potential problems for yourself?
Don’t use Photoshop PSD in preference to TIFF. Even today not all
software can read all PSD fi les because Adobe has modified the format
over the different versions of Photoshop. Who knows what PSD will look
like in 20 years, when Photoshop 15 comes out? If you need to preserve
a PSD fi le because it includes layers or other special Photoshop effects,
save a flattened TIFF or JPEG version of the photograph, too—just in
case.
Final Words
Safely archiving digital photographs is a more demanding task than
many realize, but it’s not unbearable. Once you’ve set yourself up well,
it won’t even feel particularly inconvenient. It only takes a little care
and forethought to save your work so that you and your descendants
can actually be sure of retrieving it later.
Even in the case of a catastrophe, your archives can probably still be
resurrected. Many companies are in the business of retrieving data from
storage media that seemed hopelessly damaged. For example, Drive
Savers (http://www.drivesavers.com) can successfully recover data from
hard drives that have been drowned, burnt, and crushed. Data recovery
services aren’t cheap, but at least recovery is possible.
But, if you do your archiving correctly from the start, you’ll probably
never be faced with one of those data recovery bills. Here’s the short
version of what you need to do:
1. Save your fi les in a common, nonproprietary format. The 16-bit

uncompressed TIFF format is ideal, but compressed TIFF is

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acceptable. For 8-bit color, JPEG at very low compression ratios
is also acceptable. All of these formats should remain readable
for a very long time.
2. Save your fi les on media that is durable, in common use, and

not likely to be affected by a particular company going out of
business or changing its technology. CDs and removable hard
drives are ideal. Make a schedule for periodically checking the
archived fi les to make sure that deterioration isn’t setting in,
and plan to duplicate them on a regular schedule before you see
any signs of trouble.
3. For the best security against loss, make two copies of each fi le

and keep one copy off-site. That way, if a disaster hits your
home or office, you won’t lose your photographs.
4. Finally, have an easily read catalog of what is stored in

your archives. A photographic database program is fi ne for
maintaining your archives and making it easy to fi nd fi les when
you need to work on them, but don’t expect that database to
be readable a few decades from now. Extract all of the catalog
information and save it as a simple text fi le or Word document
or convert it into an Acrobat PDF fi le. All of those formats will
be readable for very long time; your proprietary cataloging
program’s format is not likely to be. Save a copy of this
catalog document on each archived storage disk. Safe and sane
archiving is neither difficult nor especially much work. A bit of
planning now will surely save you a lot of grief years from now.